
Glass j^JoicLi 
Book . r <>.'G 



THE 



DANISH ISLANDS: 



ARE WE B0U:ND IN HONOR TO PAY 
FOR THEM? 



By JAMES PARTON. 



BOSTON: 
FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO., 

SUCCESSORS TO TICKNOE AND FIELDS. 

1869. 



/ 

THE 






ANISH ISLANDS: 



ARE WE BOUJSID IN HONOR TO PAY 
FOR THEM? 



By JAMES PARTON. 



BOSTON: 
FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO., 

SDCCESSOKS TO TICICNOK AUD FIELDS. 

1869. 






University Press: Welch, Bigelow, & Co., 
Cambridcs. 



y 



\ 



THE DANISH ISLANDS. 



THE QUESTION STATED. 

THE main question to be here considered is one of simple 
riglit or wrong, — Are we morally bound to ratify the 
treaty with Denmark, and pay the seven millions and a half in 
gold for the Danish Islands, St. Thomas and St. John ? 

It does not concern this particular inquiry, whether we want 
the Islands or not, nor whether the price is excessive or fair, 
nor whether other and better islands can be had cheaper or for 
nothing. Something may be said on these points by and by, 
because it is convenient to have all the facts of the case pre- 
sented at one view, so that busy people may get at them easily 
and quickly. But the principal question is, as between the 
United States and Denmark, Have we bought the islands? Must 
we ratify the treaty and pay the money, or commit a wrong 
upon a friendly nation, and bring just reproach upon our own 
good name ? 

In presenting this subject, my first and principal task is to 
relate the history of the treaty of cession from the beginning. 
The reader will then, I think, be in a position to judge how far 
Mr. Seward's purchase morally binds the United States, and 
whether we can honorably repudiate the treaty or not. 

BEGTNNraG OF THE NEGOTIATION. 

Dinners play an important part in European diplomacy. In 
Washington, however, I am told, although dining together is, 
during a great part of the year, the sole amusement of the 
representatives of foreign powers, serious business is seldom 



4 The Danish Islands. 

broached on festive occasions. But it is broached sometimes, 
as the reader is about to discover. 

On the seventh of January, 1865, M. de Geoffroy, the 
Charge d'Affaires of France, gave a large dinner-party at 
Washington, whicli was attended by most of the diplomatic 
corps, and, among the rest, by General Raasloff, Minister from 
Denmark. Mr. Seward was also one of the guests. I do not 
know why it happened, but it did happen, that both the 
Secretary of State and the Danish Minister arrived at the 
house of M. de Geoffroy half an hour before dinner was an- 
nounced, and they found themselves in the drawing-room al- 
most alone. A few days before, when the legations made their 
New Year's call at the Presidential mansion, Mr. Lincoln had 
singled out the Danish Minister from the rest, had paid him 
marked attention, and engaged him for a long time in con- 
versation on indifferent subjects. In a European court this 
would have meant something, but the circumstance does not . 
appear to have excited the curiosity of the Danish Minister at 
the time, and he would probably have forgotten it if the events 
which I am about to relate had not recalled it to his mind. 
General Raasloff had been a resident of the United States for 
thirteen years, during which his diplomatic duties had not 
been arduous, but he had become intimately acquainted with 
the leading men in Washington, by whom he was held in high 
esteem for his social and manly qualities. He was one of that 
very small number among the diplomatic corps resident in 
Washington, who during the rebellion sympathized with the 
United States, and believed in the final triumph of freedom 
and civilization. Neither he nor his country was to be 
reckoned among our " neutral friends." Mr. Lincoln's fa- 
miliarity with him, therefore, was not remarkable. 

It is safe to conjecture that the early attendance of Mr. 
Seward and General Raasloff at the dinner-party was not 
wholly the result of accident. Be that as it may, the Secretary 
of State took the Danish Minister aside, and conducted him 
to a sofa in a distant part of the room, upon which they both 
sat down. Mr. Seward's manner was that of a man who has 



The Danish Islands. 5 

something to communicate which he hopes will both interest 
and gratify the person to whom it is addressed. He was 
cordiality itself, and evidently exerted himself to make the 
most agreeable impression possible. 

Tlie United States, he said, wished to purchase the group 
of West India Islands belonging to Denmark, provided, of 
course, the Danish Government should be willing to part 
with them. We had been compelled by the war, he con- 
tinued, to become a great maritime power, and hence a good 
harbor and depot in the West Indies had become a matter of 
great importance to the United States, if not a necessity. He 
had thought for years of opening a negotiation for the pur- 
chase of those Islands, but a favorable conjuncture had not 
presented itself until recently. Now, however, that peace 
was re-established between Denmark and the Great German 
Powers, the happy moment seemed to have arrived, and he 
was ready to avail himself of it. To this the Secretary of 
State added some obliging and agreeable remarks, designed to 
enlist the favorable regard of the minister with whom he was 
conversing. 

" I feel persuaded," said he, " that, in addressing myself to 
you, my proposition will be communicated to the Danish 
Government with the greatest possible delicacy and discretion." 

Secrecy, he added, he considered so important that he 
had refrained from seeking in a public way any preliminary 
information with regard to the condition and value of the Isl- 
ands, nor would he try to promote the affair through any other 
channel or by any other means. It was his intention to pre- 
serve the most loyal and the most friendly attitude towards the 
Danish Government, and he assured the Danish Minister that 
the negotiations to which he hoped his proposal would lead 
should be conducted on the part of the United States in the 
most generous, chivalrous, and delicate manner, ^s a matter 
of course, he continued, the United States could not wish to 
see those Islands get into the hands of any other power ; but, 
in making this remark, he said that it was far from his inten- 
tion to insinuate that the United States did not absolutely rec- 



6 The Danish Islarids. 

ognize the right of the Danish Government to dispose of 
them. Thus, Mr. Seward. 

Abraham Lincohi, the reader will bear in mind, was our Presi- 
dent then, and the war had not ended. In making this com- 
munication to the Danish Minister, the Secretary of State spoke 
in the name of* President Lincoln, who was certainly of all men 
the last to scan the map of the world with a view to the pur- 
chase of outlying islands. Nevertheless, Mr. Lincoln, after full 
consideration, had sanctioned the scheme which Mr. Seward now 
entered upon. Tlie events of the war had brought him to it, — 
him, a Western man, naturally averse to the acquisition of ter- 
ritory soutliward, prudent, slow to take the initiative, and keenly 
sensible of the value of the millions which those Islands would 
cost. 

I have said that events had brought him to it. I should per- 
haps have said, rather, an event, — the concession of belligerent 
rights to the Confederates by Great Britain, together with the 
active, ruthless hostility of the greatest naval power of the world 
to the United States when its existence was at stake. During 
the war, I am informed, on the best living authority, there were 
British coaling-stations off our coast, from which British mer- 
chants were enabled to supply the Confederate cruisers and 
blockade-runners with coal. Mr. Welles sent vessels to the 
English waters for the supply of the national ships of the United 
States, but the public opinion of England su^^ported the British 
Governniint in ordering them away. At the Western Islands, 
at the Azores, at Madeira, our ships were refused coal and sup- 
plies through the influence of Great Britain. Finally, we estab- 
lished a coal-yard at St. Thomas, one of the three Danish Islands 
concerning which Mr. Seward and General Raasloff conversed 
on the sofa at the French Legation. 

lie selected this particular island for two reasons : 1. It is the 
central and commanding position of the West Indies ; and, 2. 
It belonged to a power which had shown, throughout the war, 
that friendly partiality for the United States which became a 
civilized and liumane nation. The Rebel flag never floated in a 
Danish port. Tiie Danish Goveruor of St. Thomas, though he 



The Danish Islands. 7 

was compelled to enforce the regulations of a neutral harbor, 
granted all the favors to Admiral Wilkes and his successors 
which an official person can grant when his heart prompts him. 
The Admiral, for example, was accustomed to evade the twenty- 
four-hour rule by keeping a vessel just outside, and letting her 
loose upon any blockade-runner that ventured to leave. 

The Governor's post was no shiecure during the war. The 
ships of both flags were so ravenous for coal that he was in con- 
tinual fear of armed vessels making a seizure of the precious de- 
posit, and he was obliged to station troops to defend the coal- 
yards. Extreme inconvenience was also experienced by our 
admirals commanding on that station from their being obliged 
to send prizes fifteen hundred miles to be adjudicated, and 
damaged steamers fifteen hundred miles for repairs. 

It was, however, the immense importance of having a coaling- 
station of our own in the West Indies that decided Mr. Lincoln, 
an * caused him to give his full and hearty consent to Mr. 
Seward's opening a negotiation for the purchase of the Danish 
Islands. He may be said to have begun the negotiation him- 
self on the second of January, 1865, when he smiled benignantly 
upon, and chatted familiarly with, tlie representative of his 
Danish Majesty, in the Blue Room of the White House. 

Mr. Seward's proposition took the Danish Minister completely 
by surprise. 

" The inhabitants of the Islands," he said, at length, " are 
happy and contented under Danish rule." 

" I cheerfully admit that," replied Mr. Seward, " but I can- 
not help thinking that annexation to the United States would 
bring with it sufficient advantage to render the inhabitants 
favorable to the transfer." 

Mr. Seward continued the conversation for some minutes 
longer, repeatedly urging upon the Danish Minister the neces- 
sity of treating the affair as a profound secret, to be disclosed 
only, to those who must necessarily be informed of it. England, 
France, and Spain, he thought, would object to a cession of 
the Islands to the United States, and might endeavor to defeat 
it by diplomatic arts, if the proposal should be made public. 



8 The Danish Islands. 

'' I decline beforehand," said he, " to be responsible for 
any divulgence which may possibly occur, as it certainly 
will not come from me ; and I determined to make this over- 
ture through you. General, because your reserve is well known 
to me." 

Mr. Seward paused. The company were all assembled. The 
• dinner was more than ready. But the master of the house de- 
ferred the opening of the dinhig-room doors, as if aware that 
something interesting was going forward on that distant sofa. 
General Raasloff, observing that Mr. Seward had completely 
expressed himself, quietly said, " I do not think his Majesty's 
Government will be inclined to part with our West India pos- 
sessions, but I will communicate your proposition." 

He would have said more, for the scheme was repugnant 
to him as a Danish citizen ; but he remembered that he was a 
^ Danish diplomatist also, and felt it to be his duty to leave his 
government untrammelled by any expressions of his own for or 
against the project. Dinner was announced ; the conference 
broke up ; and the distinguished party streamed into the dining- 
room. 

The Danish Minister lost no time in giving a full account to 
his government of this interesting interview. In the course of 
his despatch, dated January 9, 1865, he spoke much of the 
warmth and cordiality of Mr. Seward's manner. 

" Our conversation," he wrote, " left no doubt in my mind as 
to the lively desire on the part of the Government of the United 
States that their proposition should be well received by us, nor 
as to the delicacy and liberality with which it is their intention 
eventually to treat that matter It is extremely pain- 
ful for me to tliink that, after having recently lost so much ter- 
ritory, we should now be driven to part also with our West India 
possessions, bound to our country by so many ties." 

THE NEGOTIATION INTERRUPTED. 

Events, some of which were glorious and others most bloody 
and terrible, retarded the negotiation. 



The Danish Islands. 9 

For several weeks nothing more occurred in it, except that on 
the fourth of February, the day on which Mr. Seward returned 
from the celebrated Peace Conference with Confederate leaders 
at Fortress Monroe, he met the Danish Minister, and told him 
that he adhered to the proposition which he had made on the 
seventh of January. He also said to him that he had neither 
spoken nor written to any one upon the subject except the 
President. He probably meant to intimate that the close of 
the war, wliich then seemed imminent, would not alter the in- 
tentions of the government with regard to the purchase of the 
Islands. 

A month later, Mr. Seward was thrown from his carriage, and 
so severely injured that he was confined to his bed. A week 
after the accident, the Danish Minister called at the State De- 
partment to say that he had received an answer from his gov- 
ernment with regard to the proposed purchase. That answer, 
I may observe in passing, was not a point-blank refusal to sell, 
but as near to that as so polite and cautious a people as the 
Danes could be expected to make. At first, tlie project of 
transferring the Islands to the United States had not one friend 
in Denmark. General Raaslofif, the Danish Minister, was not 
favorable to it ; the conservative party opposed it, to a man ; 
the benevolent King, warmly attached to his subjects, could not 
bear the thought of parting with any more of them. Tlie King- 
dom had just lost two provinces, which comprised a third of 
its territory and two fifths of its population, and the people felt 
disheartened and humiliated. When the project was whispered 
about among them at length, the general exclamation was, — 
" Have we not lost territory enough ? Must we part witli 
more of our possessions ? Must our colonies go too ? " 

Nor was there any reason in the financial condition of the 
country why the Islands should be sold ; for, even after such 
heavy misfortunes, honest Denmark had an income equal to 
her expenditure, and her five-per cent bonds ranged, as they 
now do, above par. The sentiment of dominion, the pride of 
a mother country in her colonies, the strong attachment to 
possessions which Denmark had held for nearly two hundred 



10 The Danish Islands. 

years, — all such feelings, intensified by recent calamity, were 
against the transfer. 

"When the Danish Minister called at the State Department to 
communicate the reply of his government, he was received by 
Mr. Frederick Seward, the Assistant Secretary of State, who 
was not in the secret. The Minister could therefore only 
charge him with a message to his father, to the effect that a 
communication from the Danish Government had been re- 
ceived. It was on the twelfth of April, 1865, that this mes- 
sage was delivered. 

Two days after occurred tire assassination of Mr. Lincoln, 
and the attempt to assassinate the Secretary of State. Mr. 
Frederick Seward was also prostrated by a murderous stroke, 
and the whole machinery of government seemed for a time 
suspended. 

Nowhere in the world was the news of these tragic events 
received with profounder horror and more genuine sympathy 
than in Denmark. The King hastened to express his grief to 
the American Minister, whose house was continually filled with 
the most distinguished people in Copenhagen, who came to ex- 
press their sympathy. Nevertheless, the feelings of the court 
and ministry with regard to the cession of the Islands remained 
unchanged, and the Danish' Minister was expressly ordered not 
to initiate a renewal of the subject, either with Mr. Seward, or, 
if he should die, with his successor. And so the matter rested 
for many weeks. 

CHANGE IN THE DANISH MINISTRY. — GENERAL RAASLOFF AND 
MR. SEWARD AGAIN CONVERSE. 

It was not until near the close of August, 18G5, that social 
intercourse was renewed between the Secretary of State and 
the Minister from Denmark. When at last they did meet, the 
proposed purchase of the Islands was not mentioned by either 
of them. They were together many times during the latter 
half of the year 1865, but on no occasion was the subject al- 
luded to between them until the twenty-ninth of December, 



The Danish Islands. 11 

when the Danish Minister called upon the Secretary of State 
to impart to him the substance of new instructions just received 
from Copenhagen. A new Ministry, it seems, had come into 
power in Denmark, who were not so decidedly opposed to the 
sale of the Islands as the Ministry just retired. Accordingly, 
General Raasloff had now to inform Mr. Seward that his gov- 
ernment was not absolutely opposed to the sale of the Islands, 
but that there were weighty reasons against the sale, and that, 
therefore, the Danish Government could not take the proposal 
into consideration unless they knew how large a sum the 
United States were prepared to give. Their decision, in fact, 
would depend in a great measure upon the liberality of the 
offer which the United States might make. 

The Secretary of State, still feeble in health, and intending 
to start on the following day for a month's cruise among the 
West India Islands, said that he did not know whether the 
present was a favorable moment for such a negotiation, and 
that he must ask for time to consider it. 

General Raasloff replied that there was no need of haste ; 
he was not pressed for an answer ; and lie had only called 
then because he thought the Secretary ought to know the pres- 
ent disposition of the Danish Government. 

Mr. Seward remarked in reply that, when they had first con- 
versed on the subject, Mr. Lincoln was President, but that now 
the affair would have to be conducted under the direction of 
President Johnson, wlio, however, was not unfavorable to the 
purchase. He added that, as he was to leave "Washington the 
next day for the recovery of his health, he should have no op- 
portunity of conversing with the President before his return, 
lie intended to visit Havana, and perhaps St. Thomas, but 
his visit to the island last named would have no connection 
whatever with the proposed purchase. Again the Secretary of 
State enjoined secrecy, to the necessity of which the Danish 
Minister assented. 

Mr. Seward sailed in the De Soto on the last day of the year 
1865. He visited the Danish Islands ; and although, so far as 
I can ascertain, the secret of the preliminary negotiation had 



12 The Danish Islands. 

been faithfully kept by those to whom it was necessarily in- 
trusted, yet it seems as if the whole world considered Mr. 
Seward's visit to St. Thomas in the light of an inspection pre- 
vious to purchase. So the people of the Islands regarded it, 
and so the press of the United States interpreted it. Earl 
Russell, then at the head of Foreign Affairs in England, con- 
versed upon Mr. Seward's visit with the Danish Minister in 
London, who, not being in the secret, could not enlighten his 
Lordship, but promised him that nothing should be done 
towards selling the Islands to the United States without the 
British Government being informed. This promise proved 
afterwards to be a serious embarrassment to the negotiation, 
which was only removed by the Danish Government refusing 
to be bound by an engagement which was totally unauthorized. 

It seems to me that here is a striking illustration of the fu- 
tility of secret diplomacy. Strictly speaking, perhaps, there is 
no such thing as secret diplomacy ; but there is often secrecy 
enough to do mischief. It is only secret diplomacy which could 
have opposed the cession of these Islands to the United States, 
because no reason can be given against such a cession which a 
foreign power would choose to put into print. 

Whatever Mr. Seward's intentions may have been in visiting 
the Danish Islands, it is certain that he was extremely pleased 
with them, and that his visit greatly quickened his desire to 
possess them. Returning to Washington on the twenty-eighth 
of January, 1866, he was closeted on the very next day at the 
State Department with the Danish Minister. Theii it was that 
the negotiation began in earnest. Mr. Seward asked General 
Raasloff to repeat the communication which he had made at 
tlieir last interview, and, when that was done, he said that he 
was now ready to lay the matter before the President and the 
Cabinet. He added that he should study the precedents estab- 
lished in the purchase of Louisiana and Florida, with a view 
of finding a proper basis for the negotiation. 

There was then some preliminary skirmishing, as is usual in 
such cases, with regard to price, each of the gentlemen being 
desirous to know the ideas of the other on this interesting 



The Danish Islands. 13 

point. Mr. Seward first asked the Danish Minister whether 
he knew what his government expected for the Islands. The 
Minister did not. The Secretary then asked him what price 
he had himself thought of as reasonable. To this General 
Raasloif replied that twenty-five millions of dollars seemed 
to him a reasonable price ; at least he could say with cer- 
tainty that his government would Aot be willing to negotiate 
for the transfer unless the United States ofiered something 
handsome. 

" If my opinion should be asked," added General Raasloff, 
" which is not probable, I should propose twenty millions as 
the absolutely minimum price." 

During the next six months, while the cession of the Islands 
was the frequent theme of remark in the newspapers (no 
newspaper opposing it), the Secretary of State and the Danish 
Minister conversed often and earnestly on the subject, each 
endeavoring to get from the other something like a distinct 
offer. Mr. Seward urged that the usual course was for the 
seller to name a price, and for the buyer to consider whether 
he could afford to pay it. General Raaslofi" could not deny 
this, but called Mr. Seward's attention to the circumstances 
which in this instance seemed to justify a reversal of the 
usual order. Denmark, he observed, was not yet negotiating 
to cede her Islands. She was endeavoring to ascertain whether 
the advantages which the United States would offer could 
equal the certain loss and damage involved in parting with 
the Islands to the United States. She wanted to know whether 
or not it was worth while to take the matter into considera- 
tion. She did not want to sell ; the United States did want 
to buy. The cession of the Islands to the United States could 
not but be disagreeable to France and offensive to England, — 
powers which such a kingdom as Denmark could not wantonly 
displease nor safely offend. The preliminary question for 
Denmark was : Will the United States give us money enough 
to compensate us for the injury which the cession of the 
Islands will certainly do us^ — the loss of prestige, the loss of 
property, the weakening of ties which bind us in alliance 
with powerful neighbors ? 



14 The Banish Islands, 

Denmark had, as all nations have, and as all individuals 
have, objects, desires, dreams, which the possession of a cer- 
tain sum of money would enable her, as she hoped, to realize. 
It was, therefore, essential to her, as a preliminary, to have 
some idea of the amount of pecuniary advantage which sho 
would derive from a transfer of her West India possessions. 

A PEICE OFFERED. 

Mr. Seward and General Raaslofif had many conversations 
upon this point before either of them showed any signs of 
yielding. At length, however, when the Danish Minister 
announced his intention of returning home, and expressed a 
strong desire to convey to his government a definite propo- 
sition, Mr. Seward relented so far as to agree to lay General 
Raasloff's arguments before the President and the Cabinet, 
and see if he could obtain their consent to the naming of a 
price. He did so, but their consent was withheld. 

When the Secretary of State communicated -to the Danish 
Minister the continued reluctance of the President and the 
Cabinet to sanction an offer, he dwelt upon the great necessity 
there was for all the proceedings in an affair of this nature to 
be strictly regular and correct. I presume Mr. Seward fore- 
saw the collision between the Executive and Congress, and 
was exceedingly cautious not to give the Senate any pretext 
to reject the treaty, nor the House any reason to refuse the 
money. Mr. Seward said to General Raasloff, in one of their 
last conversations (June 28, 1866), that ^' the Executive could 
always count upon the assistance of Congress in matters of this 
Mnd, provided the proceedings had been correct^ This remark 
sank deeply into the mind of the Danish Minister, and it had, 
at a later stage of the negotiations, a very important, if not 
a decisive, effect in determining the Danish Government to 
give its assent to the treaty of cession. 

The Government of the United States at length hand- 
somely yielded the point to the Danish jMinister, and made 
him a definite offer. On the seventeenth of July, 1866, 



The Danish Islands. 15 

shortly before the departure of the Danish Minister for 
Europe, Mr. ■Seward requested his attendance at the Depart- 
ment of State. General Raasloff attended accordingly, and, 
as soon as he was seated, Mr. Seward sent for his son, Mr. 
Frederick Seward, who brought in tlie draft of a letter. This 
letter the Secretary of State read to the Danish Minister, then 
signed it, and handed it to him. It was as follows : — 

[« Confidential.] 
"Department of State, WasJdmjton, JuJij 17, 1866. 

" Sir, — I have the honor to propose to you that the United States 
will negotiate with the King of Denmark for the purchase of the 
Danish Islands in the West Indies, namely, St. Thomas and the 
adjacent islets Santa Cruz and St. John. 

" The United States would be willing to pay for the same five 
millions of dollars in gold, payable in this country. Negotiation to 
be made by treaty, which, you will of course understand, will require 
the constitutional ratification of the Senate. 

" Insomuch as you propose to visit Copenhagen, the United States 
Minister at that place will be instructed to converse with you or with 
your government on the subject ; but should your government con- 
clude to negotiate, the proceedings will be expected to be conducted 
here, and not elsewhere. 

"Accept, sir, the renewed assurance of my high consideration. 

" William H. Seward. 
"Ilis Excellency General Raasloff, &c., &c." 

In the course of conversation, Mr. Seward remarked that 
the representative of the United States in Denmark, who 
would for a time have charge of the affair, would be in- 
structed to take no steps with regard to it before General 
Raasloff should have arrived at Copenhagen. Mr. Seward 
further observed that he was not pressed for an answer to 
his offer, and that he should leave it entirely with the Da- 
nish Government to negotiate how and when they thought 
proper. 

General Raasloff left the country a few days after. He left 
us before the hostility between the President and Congress 



16 The Danish Islands. 

had assumed that aggravated character which it did toward 
the close of the year 1866. Soon after his arrival at Copen- 
hagen, he was appointed Minister of War, and he was at once 
so immersed in the great work of reorganizing the Danish 
Army that he could bestow little attention upon affairs in 
America. 

THE NEGOTIATION TRANSFERRED TO COPENHAGEN. 

The American Minister resident at Copenhagen was Mr. 
George H. Yeaman, of Kentucky, formerly a member of Con- 
gress, a very worthy, capable, and patriotic gentleman, who 
had rendered valuable service to his country in procuring 
assent to that amendment of the Constitution which annihi- 
lated slavery in the United States. On the very day (July 
17, 1866) on which Mr. Seward handed his written offer 
of five millions to General Raasloff, he despatched a copy of 
the same to Mr. Yeaman, observing to him that he thought 
it possible that the Danish Government might wish to con- 
fer with him upon the subject. Mr, Seward added these 
words : " Except in this contingency, you are instructed not 
to allude to the matter, which, under all circumstances, is to 
be kept strictly confidential." 

Count Frijs, the Danish Minister for Foreign Affairs, upon 
whom, of course, now devolved the care of this negotiation, is 
a gentleman of great wealth, ancient lineage, nnd truly ele- 
vated cliaracter, an honor to the nobility of the Kingdom. 
Like all of his order, he was ♦originally averse to the cession 
of the Islands ; but, by reflecting upon the subject, he, as well 
as General Raasloff, had become convinced that the true policy 
of his country was to part w:th possessions which, in the event 
of war, always endangered the neutrality of Denmark without 
securing to her any equivalent advantage. This opinion he 
impressed upon the King and the Cabinet, and thus by slow 
degrees the government was brought to regard the propo- 
sition with some degree of favor. Nevertheless, all the latter 
half of the year 1866 passed away, and the affair had made 



The Danish Islands. 17 

no sensible progress. The matter had, however, been men- 
tioned by the Danish Ministry to Mr. Yeaman, and some desul- 
tory conversation between them on the subject had occurred. 

MR. SEWARD BECOMES IMPATIENT OF THE DELAY. 

Late in the evening of Saturday, January 19, 1867, Mr. 
Yeaman received from Mr. Seward, through the London 
Legation, the following cable despatch : " Tell Raasloff haste 
important. ^^ 

Tlie reason why the Secretary of State sent this message 
was, I believe, that his son, Mr. Frederick Seward, was then on 
the point of sailing to St. Domingo, where he was to make 
inquiries with a view to the purchase or lease of the Bay of 
Samana, in case the harbor of St. Thomas could not be ob- 
tained. Mr. Yeaman immediately called upon General Raasloff, 
and delivered Mr. Seward's message. The General replied, 
that he had been extremely busy of late, and would be for 
some time to come, but that he would give the matter his 
attention. Mr. Yeaman inquired if he thought the affair was 
making progress. General Raasloff thought it was, but ob- 
served that Count Frijs was very cautious and prudent in such 
things, and felt some hesitation about taking a decisive step. 
Mr. Yeaman asked if there were any impediments unknown to 
him, — any except the " hesitation " felt in the Danisli Cabinet. 
General Raasloff said that there was a difficulty at Washington 
which had occurred to him, — Congress would adjourn before 
the treaty could be concluded, and therefore it could not be 
ratified. To this Mr. Yeaman replied, that the President, if 
necessary, could request the Senate to remain a short time, 
which had often been done. 

" But," said General Raasloff, " there will be no House to 
appropriate the money." 

Mr. Yeaman's reply to this objection shall here be given in 
his own words, as contained in his despatch to Mr. Seward of 
the following day. 

" I answered,^'' wrote Mr. Yeaman, " / thought there could 





18 The Danish Islands. 

not possibly he any difficulty about that, as Congress ivould as- 
suredly not refuse the necessary appropriation to execute the 
treaty. ^^ 

Mr, Yeaman added, that he had not the least means of 
judging whether the Danish Government was dallying with 
a view of getting a better offer, or whether the delay was 
owing merely to a general reluctance to sell. 

CAUSE OF THE HESITATION IN THE DANISH CABINET, AND 
HOW THEIR RELUCTANCE WAS OVERCOME. 

I can throw some light upon the delay at Copenhagen. 
There was, indeed, a genuine, general, and profound reluctance 
to sell the Islands ; but this, as just remarked, had been in 
some degree overcome. But now there was a new cause for 
distrust and alarm. The President's " swing round the 
circle " had occurred ; the breach between the Executive and 
Congress seemed past healing ; and a natural doubt arose in 
the minds of prudent Danes, whether Congress would not 
avail themselves of an opportunity to annoy tlie Executive 
by refusing to ratify and execute a treaty. Denmark, unfor- 
tunately, had no representative at the time in Washington, 
and the Danish Ministry were compelled to depend upon the 
newspapers and Mr. Yeaman for their knowledge of public 
events and the feelings of the American people. Several cir- 
cumstances contributed to lull their apprehensions to sleep, 
and to make them think that Mr. Seward, in his darling policy 
of annexation, was but executing the will of the people 
whose servant he was. Those circumstances were the fol- 
lowing : — 

1. In all the discussions to which the rumors respecting the 
purchase of St. Thomas and St. John had given rise, no 
voice was heard opposing the purchase. During the heated 
elections of the fall of 1866, although Mr. Seward had already 
announced his general policy of annexation, particularly at 
Raleigh, the year before, yet that policy was never publicly 
called in question. 



The Danish Islands. 19 

2. Mr. Seward's foreign policy seemed to have (and had) 
the emphatic approval of Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, the leader of 
that portion of the Republican party which was most opposed 
to the " man at the other end of the avenue." It so happened 
that a scene occurred in the House of Representatives, De- 
comber 13, 1866, which went far towards convincing tlie 
Danisli Ministry, and quite convinced General Raasloff, that, on 
all matters of foreign policy, Mr. Stevens and his radical friends 
were in accord with tlie Secretary of State, and were entirely 
disposed to comply with his desires. Mr. Seward had asked the 
House for what is sometimes called a " blind appropriation" of 
two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That is to say, he 
asked Congress to intrust him with the expenditure of that 
sum for purposes vaguely described in the appropriation bill as 
" The contingent expenses of foreign intercourse." Mr. Sco- 
field, of Pennsylvania, an inveterate economist, moved to strike 
out this item, and supported his motion by some humorous re- 
marks, in which he intimated that it would be cheaper to send 
Surratt's pardon to him in Europe than to go to the expense 
of bringing him home, trying him, and then pardoning liim. 

" Before we make this appropriation," said Mr, Scofield, 
" we should have some explanation of it." 

It was Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, Chairman of the Foreign 
Committee, who made the explanation. 

" When this appropriation," said the great radical chief, 
" was requested by the Secretary of State, it being a larger 
amount than that department ever asked for before, — and I 
will say here that the committee have always agreed that the 
State Department had been managed throughout more eco- 
nomically than any other department of the government, — 
I did not feel disposed to recommend it, either to the committee 
or to the House, without knowing the reason for it. Not being 
very well, I requested the Secretary of State, he being a young 
man (laughter), to call and explain it to me, which he did with 
groat courtesy. And I may as well say to the gentlemen now, 
for they may want to know, that we did not talk about any- 
thing except this appropriation. (Laughter.) He convinced 



20 The Danish Islands. 

me, not only that this sum was wanted for useful purposes, hut 
that it tvoidd finally he found to he too smalV^ 

In the course of his remarlis, Mr. Stevens said : " I feel it 
due to the administration of the State Department to go as far 
as may be prudent in voting the appropriations asked for it ; 
and however I may differ politically with the head of that de- 
partment, I cannot allow myself to be influenced by such con- 
siderations in acting upon a question of this kind." 

The scene concluded thus : — 

Mr. Scofield. " Tlie explanation of my colleague is, in gen- 
eral, satisfactory, but he says that there are some ' other items'; 
and, knowing his partiality toward the administration and his 
recent intimacy with it, I do not know but that among those 
' other items ' may be one to pay the expenses of ' swinging 
round the circle.' If the gentleman will assure us that there 
is nothing of that kind among the reserved items, I will with- 
draw my motion." 

Mr. Stevens. " I assure the gentleman that there is nothing 
of that kind included in this appropriation. Tliere are two or 
three unpaid bills of that account (laughter), but it is express- 
ly understood that they shall not come out of this appropria- 
tion." 

Mr. Scofield. " Then I withdraw my motion." 

The money was then voted. It was known at the time 
to many members of Congress, and erelong to the public, 
that a portion of this money was to be used in the acquisition 
of a West India harbor ; and some of it, it is believed, was 
actually taken by Mr. Frederick Seward to St. Domingo for 
the purpose. Now, what inference could the Danish Ministry 
draw from a scene like this, but that the influence of Mr. Sew- 
ard, as Foreign Secretary, was undiminished in Congress, and 
that the men most opposed to him in general politics could be 
most relied on to support his foreign policy ? 

3. But all this was nothing in its effect upon the Danish mind 
compared with the prompitude with which the Alaska treaty 
was concluded and ratified, together with the arguments ad- 
duced iu the Senate for the principle involved in its ratification. 



The Danish Islands. ' 21 

Seldom has anything of equal importance been done with more 
business-like despatch than the purchase of Alaska, when once 
the matter was fairly on the carpet. Passing by the desultory 
negotiations of former years, the history of the cession can be 
given in a few lines. In 186(3, the fishermen and lumbermen 
of Washington Territory called the attention of Mr. Seward to 
the subject, and he conversed upon it with the representative 
of Russia, renewing previous offers. Baron Stoeckl, being at 
home on leave late in that year, suggested one day, in conver- 
sation with the Grand-Duke Constantine, the solution of the 
difficulty between the fishermen and lumbermen of both 
nations by selling out all the Russian possessions in North 
America to the United States. The Grand-Duke approving the 
scheme. Baron Stoeckl submitted it to the Emperor, who also 
approved it. On the return of the Baron to Washington, he at 
once made known to Mr. Seward the willingness of his govern- 
ment to sell. Only two notes, and those very brief, passed 
between Baron Stoeckl and Mr. Seward on the subject. ]\Iarch 
23, 1867, the Secretary of State made his final offer of seven 
million two hundred thousand dollars. It was telegraphed to 
St. Petersburg, and, just six days after, Baron Stoeckl an- 
nounced to Mr. Seward that the Emperor accepted the offer, 
and had given him full powers to conclude and sign. On the 
very next day, March 29, 1867, the Secretary of State and the 
Russian Minister signed the treaty. June 20th the treaty was 
ratified by the Senate, and on the eighteenth of October the 
territory was transferred. 

Now the Danish Government not only witnessed this eager- 
ness and promptitude, but they also read the arguments ad- 
duced by Mr. Sumner in favor of the ratification of the treaty 
by the Senate, — arguments which they justly felt would apply 
with far greater force to a treaty with a power invested with 
the sanctity of weakness, and one from which a treaty had been 
urgently solicited. 

" Now that the treaty," said Mr. Sumner, in his celebrated 
speech on the Alaska purchase, " has been signed by plenipo- 
tentiaries on each side duly empowered, it is difficult to see 



22 ' The Danish Islands. 

how wc can refuse to complete the purchase without putting 
to hazard the friendly relations which happily exist between 
the United States and Russia. The overtures originally pro- 
ceeded from us. After a delay of years, and other intervening 
propositions, the bargain was at length concluded. It is with 
nations as with individuals. A bargain once made must be 
kept. Even if still open to consideration, it must not be 
lightly abandoned. I am satisfied that the dishonor of this 
treaty, after what has passed, would be a serious responsibility 
for our country. As an international question, it would be 
tried by the public opinion of the world, and there are many 
who, not appreciating the requirement of our Constitution by 
which a treaty must have " the advice and consent of the 
Senate," would regard its rejection as bad faith. There would 
be jeers at us, and jeers at Russia also ; at us for levity in 
making overtures, and at Russia for levity in yielding to 
them." 

Every word of this applies to the Danish treaty. What 
could Count Frijs, General Raasloff, and the people of Den- 
mark, think when they read such words as these, except that 
the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 
an illustrious orator and statesman, recognized the obligation 
resting upon Congress to ratify and execute a proper and just 
treaty made in all the forms by the Executive of the United 
States with the Executive of another nation ? Mr. Sumner 
confessed, on this occasion, that the system of secret pur- 
chase was wrong. We all feel it to be so. But honest and re- 
spectable little Denmark is not responsible for the system, 
and ought not to suffer the penalty of our voluntary adherence 
to it. 

Alaska, then, which is now the real obstacle to tlic accept- 
ance of Mr. Seward's bargain for the Danish Islands, was the 
chief cause of inducing in the Danish Government a conviction 
that the people of the United States wanted their Islands, and 
would willingly pay for them when the treaty had been regu- 
larly concluded. 



The Danish Islands. 23 



BUT THE NEGOTIATION STILL LINGERS. 

" Tell Raasloff haste important," telegraphed Mr. Seward to 
Mr. Yeamaii, on the twelfth of Januar}', 1867 ; and Mr. Yea- 
man, as we have seen, conveyed the message to General Raas- 
loff. Yet two months more elapsed before anything further 
was done. Up to this time, in fact, Denmark had done noth- 
ing but politely receive Mr. Seward's offer of five millions. 
The Danish Government had neither accepted nor declined that 
offer, neither consented nor refused to negotiate. The affair 
simply remained in March, 1867, just where it did on the 
seventeenth of July, 1866, when Mr. Seward handed to Gen- 
eral Raasloff the note offering five millions in gold. 

After waiting two months, the Secretary of State again tele- 
graphed to Mr. Yeaman : " Want yea or nay now. We can 
read Danish politicians here as well as Danish politicians 
can read American in Copenhagen." 

The American Minister at once repaired to General Raasloff, 
and asked him what progress had been made in the affair of the 
Islands since their last conversation two months before. 

" None material," replied General Raasloff. " Count Frijs 
intends to do it, but does not feel quite ready yet. There is 
a desire to await the further development of some events in 
Europe." 

" What ? " asked Mr. Yeaman. 

To this point-blank question, the Danish Minister of War 
made no particular reply. Mr. Yeaman then said that tlie 
Government of the United States would like a more definite 
answer than General Raasloff had given him reason to expect. 
The Danish Minister replied : " Something more definite and 
positive is wanted from the other side, — from your govern- 
ment." 

Mr. Yeaman observed that he thought Mr. Seward's offer of 
live millions was quite explicit, and could hardly be more so. 
Upon this General Raasloff remarked that he regarded that 
offer as merely formal, and that it was so regarded at the time. 



24 The Danish Islands. 

Those terms, he added, were out of the question, and this Mr. 
Seward very well understood, and if Mr. Seward would indi- 
cate what sum might be expected, the affair could be more 
promptly concluded. Upon Mr. Yeaman's expressing surprise 
at this remark, General Raaslofif explained : — 

" Mr. Seward's note was only intended to open negotiations, 
and not to fix the price. There are objections and difficulties 
to be overcome here. It is an unpleasant thing, and the price 
received would have a good deal to do in overcoming objections 
and diminishing the unpleasantness of the transaction. Some 
of the Cabinet are willing to sell, and others are not ; but even 
with those who are willing the smallness of the price offered 
is an objection to opening negotiations, as they fear it will be 
construed as an implied willingness to accept something like 
the sum offered." 

Mr. Yeaman then communicated the main sentence of Mr. 
Seward's yea and nay despatch. Upon receiving which, Gen- 
eral Raasloff said he was just going to a Cabinet meeting, and 
he would communicate the message. 

Two months more elapsed, during which Mr. Seward and 
Mr. Yeaman both urged despatch, and yet no communication 
was received from the Danish Government. When Mr. Yea- 
man called the attention of General Raaslofif to the matter, that 
gentleman could only converse upon the subject in general 
terms, and hold out the hope that erelong his government 
would propose something positive. There was apprehension, 
he said, of giving offence to England and France. 

I may here mention, also, that there were two other causes of 
this unfortunate delay. 1. The Danish Cabinet was in immi- 
nent danger of defeat upon their military measures in the 
Danish Parliament, which would have compelled them to re- 
sign their places. In that case they would pi-obably have been 
succeeded by ministers wholly opposed to the cession. 2. Tlicre 
was serious apprehension of war between France and Prussia ; 
and this peril, so near to Denmark, complicated the affair of 
the cession of the Islands to a degree which I need not here 
explain. 



The Banish Islands. 25 

It was not because Denmark was indifferent to the matter 
that she hesitated so long, but because the objections to the 
sale were numerous and weighty, and because the smaller 
powers of Europe must necessarily conduct their foreign rela- 
tions with extreme caution. They must beware of giving 
causes of offence. They must refrain from giving pretexts for 
offence. If the reader will but look upon the map of Europe, 
and notice the situation of Denmark, and mark how it is 
at once isolated from and surrounded by mighty nations, — 
Russia, Prussia, England, France, to say nothing of its kindred 
states on the other side of the channel, — if the reader, I say, 
will observe the situation of Denmark, both geographical and 
moral, he will be at no loss to comprehend why, in a matter of 
so much moment, Qount Frijs should have paused long before 
taking an irretrievable step. 

THE NEGOTIATION QUICKENS ITS PACE. 

At length, on the seventeenth of May, 18G7, Mr. Yeaman 
received a note from General Raasloff, informing him that 
Count Frijs wished to see him that evening. At the time ap- 
pointed he attended at the residence of Count Frijs, where the 
Count, General Raasloff, and himself conferred on the subject 
of the cession. 

Count Frijs began the conference by saying that Mr. Sew- 
ard's offer of five millions had been duly considered, and was 
declined ; but the government had concluded to comply with 
Mr. Seward's evident desire, and make a counter proposition. 
They would cede, he continued, the group of three islands for 
fifteen millions of dollars ; or they would sell the two islands 
of St. Thomas and St. John for ten millions, with the option 
of taking Santa Cruz for five millions more. Count Frijs ex- 
plained, that the ratification of the treaty of cession by the 
Rigsdag would be necessary, and that the Danish Government 
would require that the consent of the people of the Islands 
should be freely and formally given. He also recommended 
that the negotiation should be conducted at Copenhagen, 



26 The Danish Islands. 

because in that case the treaty could be ratified without 
delay. 

In ten days, by the assistance of the cable, Mr. Yeaman was 
in receipt of Mr. Seward's answer to this proposition, which 
was in substance this : The United States will pay for the three 
islands seven millions and a half in gold. 

Mr. Seward objected, however, to accepting as a condition 
the consent of the people of the Islands, and thought it suffi- 
cient if they had the free choice to return to Denmark within 
two years, or to remain and become American citizens. The 
Secretary of State consented that tlie negotiation should be 
conducted at Copenhagen, and sent Mr. Yeaman a draft of 
such a treaty as he would accept, and a full power to conclude 
and sign. 

Mr. Yeaman lost no time in communicating these instruc- 
tions to the Danish Minister for Foreign Affairs, who promised 
that he should have an early answer. Mr. Yeaman met 
General Raasloff on the same day, who also said that the 
answer would be promptly returned, and gave it as his dis- 
tinct but unofficial opinion that that answer would be no. 
Some days after General Raasloff intimated unofficially, but 
" very distinctly," that the offer of seven millions and a half 
would not be accepted, but that there was another sum which 
he thought would certainly be, and that was eleven millions 
and a quarter, — that is, seven millions and a half for St. 
Thomas and St. John, and one half of that sum for Santa Cruz. 

Nearly a month passed before Mr. Yeaman was summoned 
by Count Frijs to receive an official reply to Mr. Seward's 
offer. He was sent for at length, however, and the reply was 
precisely such as General Ra^asloff had predicted, namely, 
seven millions and a half for tlie two islands, and the privilege 
of taking the third for three millions and three quarters. 
This odd sum of eleven and a quarter millions was fixed 
upon by the Danish Ministers because it represents twenty 
millions of Danish rix-doUars, which was the smallest amount 
they then deemed it safe to propose to the Rigsdag as the price 
of the three islands. 



Tlie Danish Islands. 27 

With regard to taking a vote of the people of tiie Islands 
before the cession, Count Frijs declared that this was a con- 
dition absolutely indispensable. Besides being right in itself, 
and the established custom of Europe, the government of 
Denmark was committed to the principle by the treaty of 
Prague, which retroceded to Denmark the northern districts 
of the Duchy of Schleswig, provided they should, by means of 
a free vote, express a wish to remain a part of that Kingdom. 
Denmark, added Count Frijs, was just then intensely interested 
in the result of the impending vote, and would in no case, and 
for no consideration, consent to a transfer of the Islands until 
their inhabitants had given their free consent to it. 

Mr. Seward's second offer being thus formally rejected by 
the Danish Government, Mr. Yeaman now informed Count 
Frijs that his instructions obliged him to announce that the 
offer of the United States was withdrawn, and the negotiation 
ended. He then formally withdrew the offer, and the nego- 
tiation was suspended. 

In descanting upon this result in a private letter to the 
Secretary of State, Mr. Yeaman ventured an opinion tliat 
seven and a half millions was cheap for the two Islands, and 
suggested that it would be sound policy in the United States 
to acquire St. Thomas and St. John at that price, and leave 
Santa Cruz for future consideration. In the course of this 
letter, he made a remark or two which throws light upon the 
feeling of Denmark at the time. 

" I find the gentlemen of this government," he wrote, " a 
little sensitive upon all questions of dignity, prestige, and 
equality. This is natural. They feel weak and in some 
degree abandoned by one or two allies, and, no doubt, are more 
exacting now in the formal part of diplomatic intercourse 
than they once would have been. I am impressed that a 
hearty, friendly, somewhat imposing visit of the navy in qou- 
siderable force would make a good impression. They are in 
a condition to appreciate attention and sympathy. If General 
Sherman makes his trip (to the East), tell him to call here and 
spend a while." 



28 The Danish Islands. 



THE NEGOTIATION RESUMED. 

Nearly another month of delay. July 6, 1867, Mr. Seward 
telegraphed to Mr. Adams in London : " Tell Yeaman close 
with Denmark's offer. St. John, St. Thomas, seven and a 
half millions. Report brief quick by cable. Send treaty 
ratified immediately." 

Mr. Yeaman at once sought an interview with the Danis^i 
ministers for the purpose of making known to them these new 
instructions, but did not obtain it at once. " One cannot 
easily hasten affairs of any sort in Denmark," wrote Mr. 
Yeaman. " In everything, from cobbler to king, they are 
the most deliberate and leisurely people in the world." 

A few days passed. When next the American Minister met 
Count Frijs and General Raasloflf, jMr. Seward's terms were 
accepted by them, and only one obstacle remained to the 
immediate signing of the treaty. Denmark still refused to 
transfer the Islands unless with the consent of the inhabitants. 
Mr. Seward still objected to that. It is painful to an American 
citizen to see the representative of the Republic opposing a 
measure so just, so reasonable, and in such perfect harmony 
with American principles. It is, however,, but fair that the 
reader should know the reasons for this opposition, as given 
by Mr. Yeaman. In relating this important and nearly deci- 
sive interview, he wrote : — 

" I have lost no opportunity to impress upon them, in the 
most earnest and explicit manner, the very great preference 
of myself and my government that the cession shall be abso- 
lute, and not subject to any further conditions ; and that it 
cannot be in accordanqe with the feelings of either government 
that the matte}- should fail after a treat?/ had been signed, and 
that nothing should be done that would invite or present an 
opportunity for the influence and counter influence in the 
Islands of those three great Powers which would much rather 
see the matter fail than succeed." 

The Danish Ministry, however, were immovable. It was a 



The Danish Islands. 29 

point which they could not concede, nor would the Rigsdag 
have ratified the treaty if they had. Mr. Yeaman, therefore, 
who was disposed to yield if the treaty could not be had with- 
out, asked for farther instructions. 

" Do not agree to submit question," replied Mr. Seward by 
cable, July 20, 1867 ; " Congress soon adjourns." 

Here again was a dead lock, which the Danish Ministry, 
intensely preoccupied with its own affairs, were in no haste to 
undo. Mr. Seward, weary of the delay, wrote to Mr. Yeaman 
soon after : " You are authorized to say that, in the opinion 
of this department, promptness in the pending negotiation is 
essential to its success and the acceptance of its results."* 

General Raasloff's reply to this intimation is an illustra- 
tion of the leisurely habits of the Danes. He said there 
was again a crisis in the Cabinet, ivhich he thought ivould 
he over ivithin a week^ and theyi there woujd be nothing in the 
way of work. The General was also of opinion that, as Con- 
gress had adjourned, there was no occasion for haste. 

Further negotiation revealed the fact only the more clearly, 
that Denmark would not yield the point of the vote in the 
Islands. Mr. Yeaman telegraphed to the Secretary of State 
on the second of October : " Denmark quite ready to con- 
clude if vote mentioned in treaty. Considers favorable vote 
sure. Desires explicit acceptance of Santa Cruz." 

To this Mr. Seward replied by telegraph : " No condition 
of vote in treaty. If Denmark wants to negotiate for Santa 
Cruz by separate treaty, send draft here for consideration." 

A day or two after, Mr. Yeaman, learning that the French 
Minister was opposing the cession more warmly than usual, 
telegraphed thus to Mr. Seward : " France knows our offer 
and remonstrates. Denmark expects other remonstrances. 
Prompt action desirable. Yote in treaty indispensable." 

Mr. Seward then yielded, and telegraphed to the American 
Minister in Copenhagen : " Concede question of vote." 

But still the Danish Ministry hesitated. " They appear to 
me," wrote Mr. Yeaman, " to be really desirous of concluding, 
but to be timid and over nice, and unduly cautious about third 



30 The Danish Islands. 

powers, and certain interests that might be affected by the 
cession." In truth, as Mr. Yeanian afterwards explained, the 
Cabinet was divided on the question of cession. When at last 
it came to the point of concluding, the Minister of Marine re- 
signed his office, rather than bo supposed to consent to it. 

All things have aii end. On the twenty-fourth of October, 
1867, Mr. Yeaman was the happiest of men, for it was on 
that day that he had the pleasure of signing the treaty. 
It is evident from the whole tenor of his despatches that it 
cost the Danish Govei-nment a severe struggle to part with 
these Islands, and that in parting with them the Ministry 
honestly supposed that they were performing an act extremely 
and universally agreeable to the people of the United States. 
Nothing can be more certain than that they would have 
refused the cession absolutely, if they could have foreseen the 
humiliating delays and painful embarrassments to which they 
have since been subjected. 

The negotiations, I may mention here, were stimulated in 
the course of the summer, by the arrival in Copenhagen of 
Senator Doolittle, who came charged with a secret mission 
from j\Ir. Seward, to give all the aid he could in bringing the 
affair to a successful issue. Mr. Doolittle's mere presence in 
Copenhagen was influential ; for was he not a member of the 
body by whom the treaty would have to be ratified ? But he 
contributed more than his presence. He actively and ably 
co-operated with Mr. Yeaman, and aided materially in over- 
coming the reluctance and hesitation of the Danish Govern- 
ment. Mr. Seward also requested the Russian Government 
to use its friendly offices to the same end, and this request was 
complied with. Such was the pressure brought by Mr. Seward 
to bear upon Denmark in aid of his scheme ! And finally 
occurred the imposing visit of Admiral Farragut to Copenha- 
gen, where he and the officers of his fleet were so warmly 
welcomed. 



The Danish Islands. 31 



AN AMERICAN AGENT SENT TO THE ISLANDS. 

On the twenty-fourth of October, 1867, then, the treaty was 
signed at Copenhagen by Count Frijs and George H. Yeaman. 
Tlie transaction, however, was still far from being complete. 
The vote in the Islands remained to be taken ; the treaty had 
still to be ratified by the Danish Parliament and by the Ameri- 
can Senate ; and, finally, it would be necessary for the House of 
Representatives to vote the money, Mr. Seward does not seem 
to have been apprehensive of difficulty in accomplishing any of 
these things, except the vote in the Islands. Accordingly, on 
the very day upon which he received the telegraphic announce- 
ment that the treaty had been signed, he initiated measures 
for disposing the inhabitants of the Islands to the transfer. 
He must have known that, when once the Danish Govern- 
ment had publicly and officially announced its willingness to 
transfer the Islands to the United States, and when the people 
of the Islands had expressed their willingness to be transferred, 
it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for Denmark 
to maintain that sovereignty over the Islands which she had so 
long wielded, and to which the benignity and justice of her 
rule entitled her. A decisive vote in favor of the United 
States would almost necessarily involve a severance from Den- 
mark forever. Nevertheless, Mr. Seward, the most sanguine 
of men, pressed forward to a vote with even more than his 
usual alacrity. 

October 20, 18G7, he despatched to the Rev. Dr. Cliarles 
Hawley, of Auburn, Now York, a curious and interesting 
letter : — 

" This government," wrote the Secretary of State to his 
reverend friend, " has concluded a treaty with Denmark for a 

cesssion of the islands of St. Thomas and St John 

It is understoood that the treaty contains a stipulation that 
before the cession shall be absolute the vote of the people of 
the Islands shall be taken upon the proposed change of sover- 
eignty. It is also understood that the Danish Government has 



32 The Danish Islands. 

sent a commissioner for the purpose of superintending the 
taking of that vote. As it is desirable that this government 
should not be entirely without the attendance of a represent- 
ative there, you are requested to proceed to St, Thomas. 
You will, however, consider your attendance there as of a 
character entirely confidential. But .... you are at liberty 
to present yourself to the Danish commissioner, and you will 
show him this instruction In all things you will prac- 
tise the utmost frankness with him and absolute deference to 
his judgment and opinions. It is expected that you will meet 
Rear-Admiral Palmer, of the United States Navy, with the 
ship of war Susquehannah, at St. Thomas, who will have 
instructions similar to your own to co-operate with the Danish 
commissioner. 

" It is presumed that you will be at no loss for arguments to 
show those who may have votes upon the subject the advantages 
they would derive from transferring their allegiance to the 
United States, should they think proper to remain in the 
Islands. The market of this country, even now, is an eligible 
one for their products. It must become much more so in the 
event of their annexation. As one of the purposes of this 
government in the acquisition is to secure a naval station, the 
inhabitants of the Islands will derive benefits from that, which 
it is needless to expatiate upon. If, too, they should become a 
part of the domain of the United States, they and their pos- 
terity will have the same right to protection by a powerful 
government in war, and to tliose advantages hi the time of 
peace, which are enjoyed by other citizens." 

In pursuance of this commission. Dr. Hawley reached St. 
Thomas on the twelfth of November, 18G7. Chamberlain Car- 
stensen, the Danish commissioner, arrived a few days after. 
Rumors of the purchase had preceded them, and the mer- 
chants were asking with anxiety. Will the United States con- 
tinue St. Thomas a free port ? for upon that they supposed its 
prosperity as a place of business depended. American men-of- 
war were in the harbor, and the inhabitants were all excitement 
and expectation. It was convenient for the commissioners to 



The Danish Islands. 33 

hold their first interview with the Island authorities at Chris- 
tiansted in Santa Cruz, and Commodore Bissell of the Monon- 
galiela placed his vessel at their service for the purpose of 
transporting them thither. 

THE EARTHQUAKE OF NOV. 18, 1867. 

The interview was appointed to take place at the Govern- 
ment House at three o'clock in the afternoon of the eighteenth 
of November, — a day that will ever be remembered by the 
inhabitants of all the Islands in that portion of the Caribbean 
Sea. The commissioners had already assembled in the re- 
ception-room of the Government House. Suddenly the first 
shock of the terrible earthquake was felt. All present rushed 
in terror from the building. The whole population was in the 
streets, in that condition of panic of which no adequate idea 
can be formed by those who have never had such an experi- 
ence. The waters at the first shock had receded from the 
shore, and were now seen returning in a huge wave, twenty 
feet high and stretching as far as the eye could reach, threat- 
ening to overwhelm the town. The people fled toward the 
hills for safety ; but the mighty wave spent most of its force 
in breaking upon the reef at the harbor's mouth, and did less 
damage to the town than could have been supposed possible. 
The damage, however, was serious ; some lives were lost ; 
twenty or thirty buildings were destroyed ; and the Mononga- 
hcla was carried bodily from her anchorage, borne three quar- 
ters of a mile upon the summit of the wave, and left high and 
dry upon the land. 

In these circumstances none of the gentlemen concerned were 
in the humor for the transaction of business, and the conference 
was deferred. It was an ominous commencement. Within the 
memory of man, St. Thomas had never before experienced an 
earthquake that could be called severe. On former occasions, 
when the "West Indies were shaken by earthquakes, the shocks 
at St. Thomas had always been slight and harmless, so that the 
inhabitants built their houses, as may still be seen, without any 
3 



34 The Danish Islands. 

reference to the likelihood of such a catastrophe. And although 
this earthquake was severe and long continued, yet the damage 
done was remarkably small, considering its violence ; the new 
Government House at St. Thomas, composed wholly of stone, 
not exhibiting a single fissure. It was that mighty wave of the 
sea, caused by an upheaval elsewhere, which did most of the 
damage that day. Even from the hurricanes to which the West 
Indies are notoriously subject St. Thomas had been unusually 
exempt. Mr. Seward's treaty, however, being destined to en- 
counter every possible mishap, both the eartliquake and the 
hurricane of 1867 must needs be violent beyond all previous 
example. 

THE VOTE POSTPONED. 

For eleven days after the great convulsion, shocks were ex- 
perienced every day, which, though they did no damage, kept 
the people in such alarm that little was accomplished by the 
commissioners. November 26, an informal conference was 
held in the Government House at St. Thomas between Gov- 
ernor Birch, Chamberlain Carstensen, Dr. Hawley, and other 
Americans on the one side, and the leading merchants of the 
Islands on the other. The conference lasted two hours. The 
merchants expressed themselves with perfect frankness, ob- 
serving that, while they were more than willing to consent to 
the transfer, yet they were obliged to make their consent condi- 
tional upon St. Thomas remaining a free port, at least for some 
years. The business of the island was purely commercial ; the 
town was only a kind of general depot of merchandise, to which 
all nations contributed, and from which all the adjacent islands 
and countries were sup])lied. To subject the commerce of the 
island to the. tariff system of the United States would be to 
seriously injure that commerce. 

Dr. Hawley could only reply to these representations, that he 
felt their reasonableness, but that the difficulty had not been 
anticipated in his instructions, and he had, therefore, no au- 
thority to give an assurance of the kind demanded. 

The result of the conference was, that the Governor and com- 



The Danish Islands. 35 

missioners concluded it unsafe to risk a vote at that time. Nor, 
indeed, had the terror caused by the eartliquake sufficiently sub- 
sided. Some of the more ignorant of tlic inhabitants, who at 
St. Thomas, as everywhere else on earth, are superstitious, were 
disposed to attribute that catastrophe to the displeasure of 
Heaven at the contemplated change of sovereignty. For all 
reasons, delay was advisable. It was arranged that, before any 
further step was taken, Mr. Carstensen and Dr. Hawley should 
go to Washington in order to lay before Mr. Seward a state- 
ment of the merchants' wishes, and to endeavor to procure some 
kind of assurance tliat the port would remain free for a certain 
period, if not forever. 

In tlie course of the conference, Chamberlani Carstensen read 
the proclamation of the King of Denmark to the people of the 
Islands, in which the King informed them of what had trans- 
pired. As this was an expression of the King's ivish for a vote 
favorable to the United States, and as it was calculated to pro- 
mote such a result, the proclamation was allowed to be published 
in the St. Thomas newspaper. Its publication was a proof of 
the confidence of the Danish Government in the reality of the 
sale, and in the honor of the United States. Every one who 
reads it must feel that the publication of such a document con- 
stituted, so far as Denmark was concerned, a. fait accompli. It 
severed the tie. It broke that mystic spell which enables a man 
•or a few men in one hemisphere to exercise control over whole 
communities in another. It was one of those acts which in 
their nature are irreversible. The following is a copy of the 
proclamation : — 

Royal Proclamation to the Inhabitants of the Islands 
OF St. Thomas and St. John. 

We, Christian the Ninth, by the grace pf God King of Denmark, 
the Vandals, and the Goths, Duke of Schleswig, Holstein, Stormaru, 
Ditmarsh, Lauenburg, and Oldenburg, send to our beloved and faith- 
ful subjects in the Islands of St. Thomas and St. John our royal greet- 



36 The Danish Islands. 

We have resolved to cede our Islands of St. Thomas and John to 
the United States of America, and we have to that end, with the 
reservation of the constitutional consent of our Rigsdag, concluded a 
convention with the President of the United States. We have, by 
embodying in that convention explicit and precise provisions, done our 
utmost to secure you protection in your liberty, your religion, your 
property, and private rights, and you shall be free to remain where 
you now reside or to remove at any time, retaining the property which 
you possess in the said Islands, or disposing thereof and removing the 
proceeds wherever you please, without you being subjected on this ac- 
count to any contribution, tax, or charge whatever. 

Those who shall prefer to remain in the said Islands may either 
retain the title and the rights of their natural allegiance or acquire 
those of citizens of the United States, but they shall make their choice 
within two years from the date of the exchange of ratifications of the 
said convention, and those who shall remain in the Islands after the ex- 
piration of that term without having declared their intention to retain 
their natural allegiance shall be considered to have chosen to become 
citizens of the United States. 

As we, however, will not exercise any constraint over our faithful 
subjects, we will give you the opportunity of freely and extensively 
expressing your wishes in regard to this cession, and we have to that 
effect given the necessary instructions to our commissioner ex- 
traordinary. 

With sincere sorrow do we look forward to the severment of those 
ties which for many years have united you to us and the mother 
country, and, never forgetting the many demonstrations of loyalty 
and affection we have received from you, we trust that nothing has 
been neglected upon our side to secure the future welfare of our be- 
loved and faithful subjects, and that a mighty impulse, both moral and 
material, will be given to the happy development of the Islands under 
the new sovereignty. Commending you to God ! 

Given at our palace of Amalienborg, the 25th of October, 1867, 

under our royal hand and seal. 

Christian, R. 

Upon this proclamation the editor of the St. Thomas news- 
paper commented in a spirit friendly to the object sought. He 
endeavored to quiet the apprehensions of the merchants. 
" The Americans," he said, in substance, " are not fools ; they 



The Banish Islands. 37 

will see at a glance that high duties would annihilate the busi- 
ness of the Islands ; and they are not the kind of people to do 
anything that is manifestly impolitic." " If," continued the 
editor, in his simple way, " the people of the Islands should 
exact pledges of the United States, the United States might 
very properly reply : ' You distrust us in advance ! You 
doubt us at the threshold of the transaction ! We have done 
with it. You can keep your Islands.' " 

The editor pointed to the fact that thousands of people every 
week souglit liberty and happiness in the United States, and 
urged that such a country needed no certificate of good char- 
acter. " The freest country in the world," he said, " has no 
need to trumpet its professions in advance. Let the transac- 
tion be done, as the charter-parties say, in good faith, and we 
shall win the gratitude of Denmark and become the pet of the 
United States." 

THE DANISH COMMISSIONER IN WASHINGTON. 

In December, 1867, Mr. Carstensen and Dr. Hawley were 
conveyed to Washington in an armed vessel of the United 
States. 

Mr. Seward could not, of course, make the concession which 
the merchants of St. Thomas desired. The United States, 
he remarked, in reply to the memorial on the subject, are an 
aggregation of forty-seven distinct political communities, thirty- 
seven of which are States, and ten are preparing to become 
States. All of them had once belonged to foreign nations ; 
but such had been the benignant operation of self-government 
in the United States that not one of these communities could 
now be induced to assvime independence, nor to return to its 
former allegiance, nor accept another sovereign. 

During Mr. Carstensen's short stay in Washington, he 
endeavored to ascertain whether, in case the vote in the 
Islands should be favorable and the treaty should be ratified in 
Denmark, there would be any difficulty in procuring its ratifi- 
cation and execution in Washington. A resolution had been 



38 The Banish Islands. 

recently introduced into the House of Representatives designed 
to guard against future purchases of territory for the United 
States. Mr. Carstensen inquired of a distinguished member 
of Congress what this meant. To which the Honorable 
member replied in substance, " It means nothing at all, and 
will not be thought of when this question comes up." 

Mr. Seward did not talk quite as plainly as this, but the 
commissioner gathered from him that he had no doubt what- 
ever of the acceptance of the treaty by Congress. Mr. 
Carstensen left Washington entirely reassured. Every one he 
met said to him in effect, " You do your part, and we will 
do ours.^' 

He reached St. Thomas on the first of January, 1868, and 
entered at once upon preparations for taking the vote. On the 
'fourth of January, he met at the Government House the mer- 
chants and others at whose instance he had visited Washing- 
ton. He said to them that he had conveyed to the Secretary 
of State their memorial, and he could say to them, with regard 
to it, that the inhabitants of St. Thomas by annexation to the 
United States will secure rights superior even to those which 
they have so long enjoyed as a colony under the protection of 
Denmark. 

" The impression," he continued, " which I bring with me 
from the United States is that the United States are deter- 
mined on having a military and commercial station in the 
West Indies ; if not at St. Thomas, then at some other West 
Indian locality. I bring with me the conviction that these 
plans involve the future mercantile prosperity of St. Thomas, 
and that tlic inhabitants of St. Thomas by opposing annexa- 
tion might prejudice the future commercial position of St. 
Thomas." 

THE VOTE TAKEN. 

During these few weeks, the project of annexation had 
been constantly growing in favor with the islanders, until at 
length they seemed unanimous and enthusiastic for the cliange. 
The voting in St. Thomas occurred January 9, 1868. It 



The Danish Islands. 39 

was a universal holiday, and all the people were out of doors. 
Early in the morning, a long procession of voters bearing the 
American flag, and, preceded by a band of music playing 
Hail Columbia, marched to the polls accompanied by a great 
crowd of people. Blue was the American color. At eight 
o'clock in the morning, in the presence of the governor, the 
commissioner, and other distinguished persons, both Danish 
and American, the first ticket was deposited in the urn. It 
was a blue ticket, and was cast by James B. Gomez, a well- 
known native of the island, and proprietor of an estate. At 
the close of the day, it was found that one thousand and 
thirty-nine votes had boon cast for the cession, and only 
twenty-two against it. On the following day the vote was 
taken in St. John, where there were two hundred and five 
votes in favor of the cession, and not one against it. All 
appeared deliglited with the result. Bands and processions 
went about the towns all day, and serenades were given in 
the evening. 

" The success of the blue ticket," said the local paper, " re- 
lieves both contracting parties from an embarrassing position, 
since it would liave been hard to tell how the treaty could have 
been finally ratified on either side in the absence of a success- 
ful p/e^i&-c/^w??z, — the only modern method by which one people 
may now be incorporated with another, and at the same time 
exempt the contractors from the odium of having handed over 
their citizens or subjects as simply materials for purchase and 
sale." 

The editor also thought that, in this instance, the voters of 
St. Thomas had contrived to sit upon two stools without com- 
ing to the ground, since they had " conformed to the wishes of 
his Majesty the King, and at the same time seasonably met the 
wishes of the United States Government." 

THE TREATY RATIFIED IN DENMARK. 

Count Frijs, meanwhile, was beginning to be a little un- 
easy. Since the earthquake, articles had appeared in Amei'i- 



40 The Danish Islands. 

can papers adverse to the cession ; and what was more to be 
dreaded, a good deal of damaging ridicule had been aimed at 
Mr. Seward's propensity to buy land, as well as at this par- 
ticular purchase. The House resolution of November 25, 
1867, designed to secure to the House its part of the treaty- 
making power, caused anxiety in Denmark, and Mr. Tea- 
man wrote respecting it to Mr. Seward, that " any favorable 
explanation of the matter, or any well-founded belief that the 
House will vote the money, could be used by me to good advan- 
tage here, and telegraphic communication might be well." 

Count Frijs, in fact, was so much alarmed, that he told Mr. 
Yeaman that, after hearing of a favorable vote in the Islands, 
Denmark ivould he fully committed, and that in his opinion the 
treaty ought to be ratified by the Senate before he even pre- 
sented it to the Parliament of Denmark. He even went fur- 
ther than this, and intimated to Mr. Yeaman that he might deem 
it best to take no further step until the House of Representa- 
tives had actually voted the money ! Mr. Yeaman, however, 
always opposed delay. The House, said the American Min- 
ister, might well decline to vote the money until the treaty 
was ratified on both sides, but that he did not remember a case 
in which the House had refused money to carry a ratified treaty 
into effect. Upon this, Count Frijs agreed that it would not be 
necessary to wait for the action of the House, but he was still 
of the opinion that the Rigsdag ought not to ratify until the 
Senate had done so. 

Our Senate, however, as we all know, was disposed to noth- 
hig so little as to act upon the Danish treaty. The treaty had 
been sent in on tlie third of December, 18G7, and the Senate 
had been duly notified of the favorable result of the vote in the 
Islands, but the treaty remained in Mr. Sumner's pigeon-hole 
untouched. Mr. Seward, however, always hopeful, continued 
to represent the delay in the most favorable light. He re- 
minded the Danish Ministry, through Mr, Yeaman, that, as this 
was the long session of Congress, " 7io inference unfavorable to the 
success of the treaty coxdd he drawn from, the delay^ He also 
informed Mr. Yeaman that an envoy from the Dominican 



The Banish Islands. 41 

Republic was in Washington offering a harbor for sale, and 
observed that " it is not unlikely the Senate will prefer to wait 
for the result of my conferences with the Dominican Minister, 
before proceeding to a final consideration of the Danish treaty." 
Mr. Seward concluded this despatch with the statement, that 
" certainly the treaty for St. Thomas and St. John loses noth- 
ing in popular favor by a free examination of its merits." 

In a private letter to Mr. Yeaman of the same date, Mr. 
Seward continued in the same joyous and hopeful strain, re- 
minding Mr. Yeaman that Jefferson was assailed for twelve 
years on account of his purchase of Louisiana, and that no one 
now thought it unwise in the government to buy California. 

" The sharpness of criticism," added Mr. Seward, " upon the 
acquisition of Alaska is manifestly abated already. The exten- 
sion of the United States into the tropical seas is an affair 
scarcely less important than either of those. It would have 
been wonderful if it had escaped a searching popular inves- 
tigation." 

Such was the reassuring tone of Mr. Seward's despatches at 
this critical time. With regard to tlie allusion of Count Frijs 
to the action of the House of Representatives, he went a little 
further, and intimated, through Mr. Yeaman, that what the 
House of Representatives did or did not do in such a matter 
was none of Count Frijs's business. He couched this intima- 
tion in tlie following terms, not too polite : — 

" It would not be becoming for me to entertain correspond- 
ence with a foreign state concerning incidental debates and reso- 
lutions in regard to the treaty for the two Danish Islands, while 
it is undergoing constitutional consideration in the Senate and 
in Congress. I may add that I think that it belongs to tlie 
Executive of Denmark, so that it always proceeds in good faith 
towards the United States, to determine when and how it will 
submit the treaty for consideration and ratification of the Rigs- 
dag ; and when he shall so have submitted it, that the current 
debates it shall call forth in the Danish Legislature will not 
probably be made the subject of attention by the President of 
the United States." 



'jy 



42 The Danish Islands. 

This despatch, I am iuformed, was influential with the 
Danish Ministry. There was the tone of the master in it. 
How could the Danish Ministry suppose that a Secretary of 
State who held such language as this could have a reasonable 
treaty rejected ? They agreed, at length, that, since Denmark 
was already fully and publicly committed to the transfer of the 
Islands, it would be useless and ungracious to delay the com- 
pletion of their part of the contract. Count Frijs, accordingly, 
a few days after receiving intelligence of the favorable result 
of the voting, submitted the treaty to the Rigsdag, by whom it 
was promptly ratified. The treaty was signed on tlie same 
day, Jj^c©^.31, 1868, by the King. On the day following, 
Mr. Yeaman telegraphed to the Secretary of State : " Treaty 
sent to Washington ratified by Rigsdag and signed by King." 
To which he added in cipher : " Several European Powers 
hope it will fail in Congress." 

On the second of February, 1868, the Senate of the United 
States was officially informed of the ratification of the treaty 
by the King and Parliament of Denmark. The Senate ad- 
journed, however, without acting upon it, and nothing has 
since been done in the matter. The time named in the treaty 
for the exchange of ratifications was four months from the 
date of its conclusion, and that term expired February 24, 
1868. 

When the Senate had adjourned without acting upon the 
Danish treaty, Mr. Seward asked the Danish Government for 
another year. In according this solicited privilege. Count 
Frijs requested M. Bille, the Danish Chargd at Washington, to 
inform Mr. Seward of the loss and embarrassment which the 
delay in ratifying the treaty had caused and were causing. The 
prolongation, he said, of the state of suspense seriously af- 
fected the interests of the people of the Islands, and " places 
his Majesty's Government in a painful and unforeseen position." 
In reply Mr. Seward said : " I am dh'ccted by the President to 
acknowledge the force and propriety of the considerations ex- 
pressed in that communication, and to assure you that such 
further proceedings as are necessary to give full effect to the 



The Danish Islands. 43 

treaty will be taken with good faith and diligence on the part 
of the United States." 

Has this promise been kept ? Was any attempt made to 
keep it ? I believe not. And yet, reader, it was made on 
behalf of the United States, by a man whom foreign gov- 
ernments were obliged to accept as our spokesman and author- 
itative agent ! 

The additional year conceded by Denmark to Mr. Seward's 
solicitation expires on the fifteenth of October, 1869. 

SUMMARY OF THE FOREGOING. 

The narrative just concluded shows, among other things, 
the following : — 

1. It was the Government of the United States that initiated 
the negotiations for the cession of the Islands. 

2. Denmark was unwilling to sell them, and there were 
weighty reasons of policy against selling them to the United 
States. 

3. In selling them to the United States, Denmark deliber- 
ately preferred a closer alliance with the United States to a 
closer alliance with England and France. 

4. Denmark accepted a lower price than she at first deemed 
just, and that price was the one offered by the United States. 

5. Denmark had no reason to suppose that this acquisition 
was not as heartily desired by the people of the United States 
as it was manifestly desirable. 

6. Denmark, trusting to the good faith of the Government 
of the United States, has taken steps toward the transfer of 
the Islands which cannot, in the nature of things, be retraced. 



THE INJURY TO DENMARK IN CASE THE TREATY IS NOT 
RATIFIED AND EXECUTED. 

I call the attention of the reader to this point here, because 
it is one upon which a difference of opinion is hardly possible. 
That Denmark will suffer serious loss and damage if we do 



44 The Danish Islands. 

not accept and execvite tlie treaty is manifest, but it is not 
manifest how serious that loss and damage may be. She will 
be humiliated in the eyes of all the vulgar part of mankind, 
whose habit it is to sneer at the victims of unworthy conduct, 
not at the party guilty of the same. Denmark, as Mr. Yea- 
man remarked, after the heavy losses of the last few years, 
has the feeling of being abandoned by her natural allies, and 
abandoned because she is weak. Now comes this last stroke. 
She sees Alaska paid for, because Russia is a powerful friend 
whom we will not run the risk of estranging, while her own 
treaty, negotiated in the same manner by the same person, 
and for objects more important, lies unnoticed. Such treat- 
ment, when it cannot be effectively resented, tends to lower a 
people's self-respect, and diminish their moral and physical 
force. There is perhaps no offence more damaging than an 
unjust wound to a reasonable self-love. 

We are also to consider that it was the liberal and progres- 
sive party of Denmark which carried this measure, and that 
that party is both weakened and dishonored if we repudiate 
the treaty. General Raasloff might well say, as he did some 
time since : — 

" I am morally responsible for having persuaded the Danish 
Government to cause the vote to be taken, — an act which 
nothing but the most implicit confidence in the good faith 
of the United States, and in the binding character of the 
treaty, could justify, and which now threatens the most dis- 
astrous consequences to my too confiding country." And 
again : " Having been more than anybody else instrumental 
in bringing such a calamity and humiliation down upon my 
country, I shall have proved myself utterly unfit to be a con- 
stitutional adviser of the Crown. If it was folly to believe in 
the good faith of the United States, I and my colleagues 
ought to suffer for that folly." 

Every one will agree that, in order to stand justified before 
mankind for putting to an open shame the ablest and most 
progressive statesmen of Denmark, we must be able to adduce 
reasons which the judgment of an impartial world will ap- 
prove, and international usages justify. 



The Danish Islands. 45 

Especially must we bear in mind that Denmark has already 
experienced a considerable portion of the loss involved in the 
cession of the Islands, She has shown her willingness to dis- 
oblige England, France, and Spain, and she has shown a pref- 
erence for the friendship of the United States. This damage 
has been done. Her feelings have gone into irrevocable print. 
She has publicly given in her adherence to the great powers 
of the Future, and disregarded the wishes of the great 
powers of the Past. She has given the latter a pretext for 
disregarding her interests in future complications. Nor is it 
certain that she has not lost her Islands, whether we pay for 
them or not. Did not General Butler, the other day, in Con- 
gress, intimate a willingness to consider the vote of tlie 
islanders in the liglit of an accomplished cession ? 

" We have," remarked General Butler, " by our action put 
ourselves in a very anomalous position in regard to some of 
these Islands. Our Executive called upon Denmark, and 
asked to have the people of St. Thomas vote whether they 
would belong to Denmark or to this country. That people 
voted that they preferred to belong to this country, and there- 
upon they seem to have shut themselves off from Denmark, 
wliile we are not yet ready or willing to ratify the treaty by 
which we agreed to pay money for that island." 

These were ominous words. The reader of tlie forea-oina; 
pages perceives that General Butler was not aware, when he 
uttered them, of one of the most material facts concerning 
the treaty and the Island vote. But there is no man in Con- 
gress wlio would go further than General Butler in fulfilling tlie 
conditions of a just compact between the United States and a 
foreign power. I look, therefore, with confidence to seeing 
him support and vote for the execution of this treaty when it 
comes to be acted upon by the House, of which he is so effi- 
cient a member. I quote his words merely to sliow that tlie 
hold which Denmark had upon those Islands is weakened by 
the treaty of cession. Many circumstances, highly probable, 
can be imagined in which St. Thomas would be immediately ' 
wrested from any but a first-rate naval power. Great changes 



46 The Danish Islands. 

are imminent in the West Indies. Those fertile islands are 
about to begin to play their proper part in the affairs of this 
continent. Without going into detail on this interesting 
branch of the subject, I would submit it as a question to the 
intelligence of every candid reader acquainted with human 
affairs : Is it not clear that the act to which General Butler 
refers in his remarks quoted above, namely, the vote in the 
Islands of January, 1868, can never be wholly undone ? 

I would also remind the reader that seven millions and a 
half in gold is to Denmark about what three hundred millions 
of dollars in currency would be to the United States. In other 
words, it is nearly a year's revenue. The population of Den- 
mark is now sixteen hundred thousand, and its annual revenue 
is a little more than eight millions of dollars. 

AND WHAT IS DENMARK? 

Denmark is a power which, in everything but magnitude, 
wealth, and numbers, compares advantageously with the four 
most advanced nations of the earth. Without indulging in 
vao-ue eulogium, I will mention two or three circumstances 
which give to this little Kingdom a special claim to the re- 
spectful consideration of the United States. 

Denmark is one of the few free countries of the world. Its 
government is a strictly limited constitutional monarchy, with 
a Legislature composed of two Houses. I believe there is no 
region of the earth in which the natural rights of man are held 
more sacred than in Denmark, nor one in which a larger pro- 
portion of the people enjoy substantial welfare. An honest 
attempt is made in that country to educate the whole people. 
The means of education are provided for all, and no child can 
be defrauded of education by parent, guardian, or master, or 
by his own negligence, except in violation of the law. Copen- 
hagen, considering the slender revenues of the Kingdom, is 
wonderfully rich in galleries of art, museums, libraries, collec- 
tions of coins and other instructive objects. Its University is 
highly respectable. Copenhagen is the city of Oersted, Thor- 



The Danish Islands. 47 

waldsen, Andersen, — three names of universal celebrity, and 
each the representative and ornament of a numerous body. 

The course of Denmark with regard to tlie colored popula- 
tion of her Islands would alone entitle her to the respect of the 
human family. In 1792, she took the lead of all the nations 
in abolishing the slave-trade ! In 1848 she abolished slavery 
throughout her dominions, but long before doing so she in- 
stituted a series of measures designed to prepare the slaves 
for the perilous gift of freedom. She dotted her Islands all 
over witli school-houses, and made the attendance of the colored 
children for a certain portion of the year, and for a term of 
years, obligatory. The Danish laws regulating the treatment 
of the slaves were so mild and just that, when at length the 
day of emancipation came, neither whites nor blacks were con- 
scious of any great change. It is the universal testimony of 
persons familiar with the West Indies, tliat no where arc the 
colored people so happy, so well cared for, so well protected by 
the law, as in the Danish Islands. I have conversed with sev- 
eral highly intelligent 'gentlemen who have resided there, and 
tliey all bear witness to this fact. Mr. Seward said, when he 
returned from his visit to them a few years ago : " At Santa 
Cruz I saw for the first time the colored people as I wish to 
see them." 

Nearly four years before his visit, the attention of the Gov- 
ernment of the United States had been forcibly called to the 
happy and truly fortunate condition of the colored people in 
the Danish Islands, and it had entered into a convention, ne- 
gotiated by the Danish Minister and the Secretary of Interior, 
for the settlement in Santa Cruz of blacks taken from captured 
slavers by American men-of-war. Our government became 
satisfied that this was far more Iniraane than sendhig them to 
their native continent, where they were almost certain to be 
reduced again to slavery, and were very likely to be sold again to 
the traders for trarsportation to the Spanish possessions. I have 
read the laws relating to the laboring population of the Danish 
islands, and they appear well adapted to secure the rights and 
happiness of a people recently enlancipated, and not yet a gen- 



48 The Danish Islands. 

eration removed from total ignorance. The operation of those 
wise and just laws prevented the Danish Islands from lapsing 
into the condition of Jamaica, where the emancipation of the 
slaves was very far from being an unmixed good. Jamaica, 
as we all remember, was a standing argument against freedom, 
— an argument of which the Danish Islands were a complete 
refutation, though at the time we were not aware of it. 

Perhaps to this brief indication of the solid merits of Den- 
mark it may not be improper to add a few words respecting its 
reigning family. The present king. Christian IX., is an ex- 
emplary and trul}'' respectable character, a man of amiable dis- 
position and strong domestic attachments. He has performed 
the very difficult task — more difficult for a king than for any 
other man — of rearing a large family so well that his chil- 
dren reflect honor upon their race and country wherever they 
go. One of his daughters, the Princess Alexandra, so beloved 
by the people among whom she dwells, will one day be Queen 
of England, and promises to give that support to the throne by 
her virtues and good sense which we have reason to fear it will 
need. Another of the daughters of this royal house is the wife 
of that Russian prince who is heir-apparent to the imperial 
throne. A son of King Christian is interesting to us as King 
of Greece. 

In every point of view, Denmark is the last of the powers 
to whose rights and feelings the United States should bo in- 
different. 

There is a good deal of cant written about the friendship of 
one government for another. I do not know that there is any 
such thing as friendship between governments. A goverunient 
is merely intrusted with the power and resources of a country, 
and it is bound to use that power and those resources with a 
single eye to the true and permanent welfare of the country 
governed. A govermnent, perhaps, can never properly be gen- 
erous ; certainly, it ought always to be just. On several re- 
markable occasions, however, the Government of Denmark has 
shown that it felt itself morally akin to that of the United 
States. I remember that, as far back as 1783, just after the 



The Danish Islands. 49 

close of the Revolution, the Prime Minister of Denmark wrote 
to the Danish Envoy at Paris a letter abounding in sympathy 
with what he styled " the glorious issue " of our Revolutionary 
War. 

" I cannot omit," wrote this Minister to the Envoy, " warmly 
recommending to you to endeavor, during your stay at Paris,i to 
gain as much as possible the esteem and confidence of Dr. 
Franklin. You will recollect what I said in my conversations 
with you of the high respect all the King's Ministry have for 
that Minister. You have witnessed the satisfaction with which 
we have learned the glorious issue of this war for the United 
States, and how fully we are persuaded that it will be for the 
general interest of the two states to form, as soon as possible, 
reciprocal conventions of commerce and friendship." 

Such conventions were speedily concluded. The ancient 
Kingdom and the young Republic became cordial allies, since 
both were subject to the same danger and had the same inter- 
ests. Both were weak nations contending for their rights as 
neutrals amid the conflicts of the most powerful empires in the 
world. Count Bernstoff, the Prime Minister of Denmark, who 
wrote the letter quoted above, was the eminent European 
champion of the rights of neutrals, to whom they all looked 
for counsel and moral support. And yet, in the course of the 
long and imbittered wars between the allies and Napoleon, 
Avlien Denmark and the United States had so difficult parts to 
play, many seizures were made of American vessels (sailing 
under British convoy or with British licenses) by Danish ships 
of war, and condemned, as the owners deemed, unjustly. 
These seizures led to a long negotiation between Denmark 
and the United States for the redress of that grievance. The 
affair was finally arranged while the distinguished Mr. Wheat- 
on represented the United States at Copenhagen. It was a 
really difficult case, as may be seen by reference to Mr. Wheat- 
on's work upon International Law, and some eminent lawyers 
are to this day of opinion that Denmark was not legally re- 
sponsible for the injury done. The Danish Government, 
however, waived the technicalities of the case, and settled the 
4 



50 The Danish Islands. 

matter by paying, for distribution among tlie owners of the 
captured vessels, six hundred and fifty thousand dollars, besides 
relinquishing important claims of their own against us. 

Many particulars could here be given of the conduct of Den- 
mark during the late war, — I mean the war which was fought 
out on land between the United States and the Southern Con- 
federacy, and fought on the sea between the United States and 
Great Britain, — which would show that the heart of Denmark 
,in that great contest was not with the power which bombarded 
her capital and carried off her fleet sixty years ago. Mr. Sew- 
ard himself testified to the friendship of the. Danish Gov- 
ernment in a despatch of June 9, 1863, when he said that 
its "just and liberal consideration of our rights is acknowl- 
edged with peculiar satisfaction." No matter for this. I mere- 
ly wish to insist that, in all the diplomatic intercourse which 
has occurred between the two countries, from 1783 to the pres- 
ent time, the conduct of the Danish Government has always 
been strictly honorable, courteous, and more than ordinarily 
friendly. 

Denmark now has one more claim to our respectful consid- 
eration, which will appeal powerfully to every mind not in- 
capable of magnanimity. She is clad in the sacred majesty of 
weakness and undeserved misfortune. We can rob these jew- 
els from her if we will. But if, after paying for Alaska, we 
refuse to stand to our bargain for St. Thomas and St. John, it 
will be hard to convince mankind that we paid Russia for any 
other reason than because Russia is strong, and tliat we decline 
to pay Denmark for any other reason than because Denmark is 
weak. 

BUT IS THE BARGAIN OURS? 

That is the main question ! Is it our bargain, and not mere- 
ly Mr. Seward's ? 

A treaty of this kind, which stipulates the payment of money 
by the United States, requires a double ratification : the Sen- 
ate must ratify the treaty, and the House must vote tlie money. 
There is an impression in some circles that Congress has the 



The Danish Islands. 51 

same right to give or withhold this twofold ratification that 
it has to pass or reject any ordinary measure of legislation. 
Whether this ought or ought not to be the case is not the 
question to be considered here. I have ©nly to say that such 
a right has never been claimed by a majority in Congress, nor 
exercised by Congress nor by any other legislative body. 

According to all American precedent, the Senate has the 
same kind of right to refuse the ratification of a treaty which 
it has to reject a nomination sent in by the President ; and the 
House has the same kind of right to refuse tlie money for tlie 
execution of a treaty which it has to reject a bill appropriat- 
ing money for the necessary expenses of the government. 

The Senate may refuse to confirm an appointment for rea- 
sons of pique or prejudice. It has the power to do this, as a 
strong man sometimes has the power to trample upon the 
rights of the weak. But before the Senate can reject a nomi- 
nation rightfully, sound and solid reasons must be adduced. 
Some senator or senators must rise and say in substance : 
" The man nominated resides in my district, and I personally 
know him to be untrustworthy and incapable." Or he must 
say : " The previous incumbent of the office I personally know 
to liave been honest and competent, and I know that he was re- 
moved for his merits, and not for his faults." When senators 
of known integrity give information of this kind, the Senate 
not only has a moral right to reject the nomination, but is 
morally bound to reject it. 

The House, also, would, in certain possible contingencies, be 
justified in rejecting an appropriation bill which would abso- 
lutely bring the government to a stand-still. But in no ordi- 
nary circumstances would it be justified in doing this. Such a 
course would savor of revolution ; it would be of the nature 
of a last resort ; it would in no proper sense of the word be 
legislation. 

It was only the other day that I myself heard a distinguished 
member of Congress, in speaking of an item in the Indian 
Appropriation Bill, use language illustrative of this point. He 
was remarking upon tlie immense difficulties which General 



52 The Danish Islands. 

Grant would experience in carrying out his simple and patri- 
otic programme of honestly administering the government. 

" Why," said he, " look at this clause in our Indian Bill. 
I know, and the committee knows, and Congress believes, that 
the Indians will never get three tenths of this money, or the 
goods directed to be bought with it ; and yet we must all 
vote for it." 

. " Must," said I, " why must ? " 

" Because we are bound to do it by a treaty." 

A very little reflection, indeed, will show any one that the 
power which Congress rightfully has over treaties is essentially 
different from that which it has over the bills usually sub- 
mitted to its consideration. According to the system estab- 
lished in all constitutional countries, a treaty may be rejected 
only for certain causes which are enumerated by the writers 
upon international law ; the chief cause being a serious depart- 
ure from the instructions of the minister who signed it. 

Vattel, for example, says : " To refuse with honor to ratify 
that which has been concluded in virtue of a full power, the 
sovereign must have strong and solid reasons for it, and 
particularly he must show that his minister transcended liis 
instructions." 

Martens says : " Everything that has been stipulated by an 
agent, in conformity to his full powers, ought .to become oblig- 
atory for the state from the moment of his signing, without 
ever waiting for the ratification. However, not to expose the 
state to errors of a single person, it is now become a general 
maxim, that public conventions do not become obligatory until 
ratified. The motive of this custom clearly proves that the 
ratification can never be refused with justice, except when he 
who is charged with the negotiation, keeping within the extent 
of his public full powers, has gone beyond his (secret) in- 
structions, and consequently rendered himself liable to punish- 
ment ; or when the other party refuse to ratify." 

Wheaton says : " No institutional writer has laid down so 
lax a principle as that the ratification of a treaty, concluded 
in conformity with a full power, may be refused at the mere 



The Danish Islands. 53 

caprice of one of the contracting parties, and without assigning 
strong and sohd reasons for such refusal." 

I will not multiply citations, because, as far as I know, no 
respectable authority has ever maintained that a legislature 
has a moral right to withhold its sanction from a treaty prop- 
erly concluded, except for stronger reasons than those of 
convenience. It is an axiom of business, both public and 
private, that a duly authorized agent, acting in conformity 
Avith his instriictions, must never be disavowed. 

A distinguished Senator put a searching question some time 
since to General Raasloff : — 

" In your opinion," asked the Senator, " would the United 
States have a right to complain if your Rigsdag had refused 
their consent to the ratification of the St. Thomas treaty ? " 

An excellent question. The reply of the General was 
interesting and deserves consideration. 

" If," said he, " the Rigsdag had refused their consent to 
the ratification of the treaty with the United States, the Da- 
nish Government would have dissolved that body, and appealed 
to the people by means of a general election ; and if the new 
Rigsdag, elected on that question, should likewise have refused 
their consent, the Cabinet ministers would have resigned their 
offices. But even though we sliould in that manner have 
given you all the satisfaction our government had it in their 
power to give, you would, in my opinion, still have a right to 
complain of us for having trifled with you in having neglected 
to secure beforehand the ratification of a solemn treaty entered 
into with you ; and that your riglit to complain would have 
been greater if the treaty had been made at our instigation, 
and greater still, if, implicitly confiding in the good faith of 
Denmark, the United States had irrevocably committed them- 
selves by the adoption and execution of important measures 
which could not be deferred without rendering impossible the 
punctual exchange of ratifications within the term stipulated 
by the treaty itself." 

This reply appears to meet the objection suggested by the 
honorable Senator's inquiry. 



54 The Danish Islands. 

Perhaps it will eliicid.ate this subject a little if I employ here 
a homely illustration. Let us suppose the United States to be 
a great mercantile firm established in the city of New York, 
of which firm William H. Seward is the managing partner, 
known to be such in the business circles of every commercial 
city on earth. He is identified with the house, whose name he 
is authorized to sign, and for whom he has made many im- 
portant contracts and bargains, which have been fulfilled to 
the letter without question. George H. Yeaman, we will sup- 
pose, is the resident agent of this great firm at Calcutta. Mr. 
Seward writes to Mr. Yeaman a letter, which he is authorized to 
exhii)it to parties interested, empowering and ordering him to 
buy for the firm a thousand chests of indigo at the lowest market 
rate, and ship the same to New York. Mr. Yeaman buys the 
indigo, places it on board ship, and notifies Mr. Seward. Can 
the firm rightfully repudiate the contract ? They can ; but 
only for causes recognized as sufficient by the commercial 
world. If it can be shown that Mr. Yeaman bought the 
indigo at a price much above the market rate, induced thereto 
by corrupt means, or had in any other way criminally violated 
a material part of his instructions, the house could properly, 
and with the approval of the mercantile community, disavow 
the purchase. But the bargain could not be disavowed because 
indigo had fallen in price, or because money was scarce, or for 
any other reason of mere convenience. 

It is not in place to say here that Mr. Seward ought not to 
have been intrusted with such powers. It may be that a mana- 
ger ought, in each transaction, to be required to call together 
the heads of the firm, to lay the matter before them, and se- 
cure a particular authorization before writing to a foreign agent. 
Arrange it so for the future if you will, and give due notice to 
your correspondents abroad. But these Islands were purchased 
on the system established, universal, and never before seriously 
called in question. Grant, if you please, that the firm did not 
want so much indigo, having a whole warehouse filled with it 
already. They must hold Mr. Seward responsible for that mis- 
take. They must not exact the penalty from those worthy 



The Danish Islands. 55 

merchants, Messrs. Frijs, Raasloff, & Co., who sold their in- 
digo at Mr. Seward's pressing request, at rates more favorable 
than they deemed quite just to themselves, and in disregard of 
the wishes of some old friends of their house, and now, 
having put the indigo on board ship, and made known the price 
at which they sold it, cannot take it back without incurring 
loss and shame. 

As governments are now constructed, there must be an Ex- 
ecutive which alone can treat with the governments of other 
nations. If Congress has unlimited power over treaties, — pow- 
er to accept or reject them at pleasure, — then it is with Con- 
gress that foreign ministers will really negotiate. They may 
for a while maintain the forms of diplomatic intercourse with 
the Secretary of State, but they will put forth their strength 
and exercise their art in the lobbies and committee-rooms of 
the Capitol. The Government of the United States alone 
will have no means of holding effective intercourse with other 
governments, because every act of an American diplomatist 
will be vitiated by the known possibility of its being disavowed 
by the national Legislature for causes which a foreign minister 
can neither anticipate nor understand, and which the Legisla- 
ture itself may not choose to explain. The caprice of a ma- 
jority, the pique of a faction, the unpopularity of a president, 
indolence, fatigue, whim, artifice, may consign the most just 
and politic treaty to the tomb of the Speaker's table. A rep- 
resentative of the Government of the United States could not, 
in such circumstances, either associate with the ministers of 
foreign governments as an equal, or transact business with 
them on advantageous terms. An agent who fears to be disa- 
vowed, or who is known to be liable to that dishonor, cannot 
be expected to render efficient service. It is much if he is al- 
lowed to converse, hat in hand, with the heads of great houses 
of business. He is a mere correspondent, not an agent. His 
affair is to transmit information, not to sign contracts binding 
on his principals. 

We must think twice before making such a change as this. 
At present, the government consists of three branches : Are we 
quite sure that we could manage better with two ? 



56 The Danish Islands. 



AMERICAN PRECEDENTS. 

There is no case on record which is precisely similar to that 
of the treaty now under consideration. The question, how- 
ever, of the duty of Congress with regard to the ratification 
and execution of treaties has received frequent illustration in 
the history of our diplomacy. 

The Jay treaty of 1794 was, beyond all comparison, the most 
odious one to the American people that has ever been concluded 
between the United States and a foreign power. Mr. Jay 
was sent to England to procure, if possible, the admission of 
American wheat, fish, and meat into tlie ports of Great Britain 
on fair terms of reciprocity, to put an end to the impress- 
ment of American sailors and the lawless seizure of American 
cargoes, and to place the entire commercial intercourse of the 
two nations upon a just and equal footing. His treaty secured 
none of these objects. It was not in accordance with his in- 
structions. It obliged us to pay damages to England, instead 
of compelling the English to pay damages to us. It left Amer- 
ican sailors the unprotected prey of English captains. It gave 
us scarcely anything that we wanted, unless it was something 
we had already ; and it denied us almost everything we want- 
ed, unless it was something which we could not be prevented 
from taking. Never was there a treaty so revolting to a free 
people as this. The only thing that could be said in favor of 
it was: It was the best that could then l>e had ! Mr. Ji^ffcr- 
son thought so ill of it tliat he said we had better have no 
treaty at all than one which dishonored the infant nation. He 
thouglit we had better even " abolish the treaty-making power, 
except to conclude a peace," than accept it. It was fortunate, 
he added, that the first decision respecting the power of Con- 
gress over a treaty was " to 1)e in a case so palpably atrocious 
as to have been predetermined by all America; for on the 
precedent now to he set tvill depend the future construction of our 
Constitution^ 

The precedent tvas set. President Washington, after his 



The Danish Islands. 57 

usual careful and deliberate consideration, ratified the treaty. 
Exactly two thirds of the Senate ratified it and the appropri- 
ations necessary for the execution of the treaty were passed in 
tlip House of Representatives by fifty-one to forty-eight. The 
opinion of Mr. Jefferson and of his friends in Congress was 
this : " When a treaty is made involving matters confided by the 
Constitution to the three branches of the Legislature conjoint- 
ly, the representatives are as free as the President and Senate 
were to consider wliether the national interest requires or 
forbids their giving the forms and force of law to the articles 
over which they have a power." 

This was the popular doctrine of the day ; but Congress did 
not act upon it, and all the precedents since are adverse to it. 
The time may come when wo shall accept Mr. Jefferson's view 
of this matter ; but as. we cannot make an ex j^ost facto law, so 
I conclude we cannot justly apply an ex post facto interpreta- 
tion of law to the injury of an ally. The Jay treaty, I admit, 
gave the death-blow to tlie Federal party ; but no Demo- 
cratic majority has since failed to ratify a treaty properly made 
in accordance with instructions and with fundamental princi- 
ples. 

President Monroe and the whole country. Federalists and 
Democrats, were extremely indignant when the King of Spain 
refused to ratify the Florida cession treaty of 1819. The 
King, it seems, during the negotiations, had disposed of all the 
best land in Florida in "grants" to favored individnals, and 
these grants he desired should be recognized in the treaty of 
cession. Tlie American Minister, of course, objected to pur- 
chase an estate thus encumbered, and the King, in conse- 
quence, refused to ratify. The language which Mr. Monroe 
held on this subject in his next message is curiously applicable 
to the Danish treaty. 

" The treaty itself," said Mr. Monroe, " was formed on great 
consideration, and a thorough knowledge of all the circum- 
stances ; the subject-matter of every article having been for 
years under discussion, and repeated references having been 
made by the Minister of Spain to his government on tlie points 



58 The Danish Islands. 

respecting which the greatest difference of opinion prevailed. 
It wafe formed bj a Minister duly authorized for the purpose, 
who had represented his government in the United States, and 
been employed in this long protracted negotiation several years ; 
and who, it is not denied, kept strictly within the letter of his 
instructions. The faith of Spain ivas therefore pledged, under 
circumstances of peculiar force and solemnity , for its ratification.''^ 

It was agreed throughout Christendom, that the King of 
Spain, in refusing to ratify, was guilty of an outrage against 
the United States ; and I know, from unpublished letters, that, 
if General Jackson had been President, instead of James 
Monroe, he would have seized Florida ! The Emperor of 
Russia, then, as always, the friend of the United States, fearing 
a breach of the peace, wrote to his Minister in Washington, 
that, " though he would not take it upon himself to justify 
Spain," yet he charged his Minister " to plead wfth the gov- 
ernment at Washington the cause of peace and concord." 
" Some uneasiness was felt," says Mr. Lyman, the author of a 
work on the diplomacy of the United States, " lest the United 
States should resent the delay of Spain, and take possession of 
the Floridas by force." The same respectable author adds 
the following remarks : — 

" This transaction is, we believe, without a precedent in the 
diplomacy of the United States. Tlie government has refused 
to ratify treaties. Other nations have exercised the same 
privilege, but never without a reason ; perhaps not in all cases 
satisfactory to the opposite party, but at least bearing upon its 
face some sort of defence and justification." 

General Jackson's controversy with the government of Louis 
Pliilippe had much in it which resembled our present affair 
with Denmark, only in that case it was we. who were to receive 
the money, and another power that had to pay it. In 1831, 
Mr. Rives, the American Minister at Paris, concluded a treaty 
with France, by which tlie French Government agreed to pay 
the L^'nited States five millions of dollars, in compensation for 
the unlawful seizure of American ships before the peace of 
1815. We, on our part, agreed to settle some outstanding 



The Danish Islands. 59 

claims of French citizens against the United States, one of 
which (the claim of the heirs of Beaumarchais) dated back to 
the second year of the Revolutionary War. We also agreed to 
lower the duties on French wines to six cents per gallon for 
clarets, ten cents for white wines, and twenty-two cents for all 
bottled wines. 

This treaty was duly ratified by President Jackson and the 
Senate of the United States. More than that, — Congress 
passed a law reducing the duties on French wines to the rates 
named in the treaty, appointed commissioners to distribute 
the money justly among the several claimants, and did all 
other acts and things requisite for the fulfilment of our part of 
the contract. Louis Philippe also ratified the treaty, and then 
nothing remained but for the French Chambers to vote the 
money. But they did not vote the money. At first, as this 
appeared to be merely the result of oversight or carelessness, 
President Jackson respectfully remonstrated. Then the Cham- 
bers took offence, and deliberately voted down the bill appro- 
priating the money for the first instalment. No one who has 
any knowledge of the character of General Jackson needs to be 
informed what his feelings were when the news of this refusal 
of the money reached Washington. His message of 1834, 
though couched in the formal language usual in such docu- 
ments, is a warlike paper indeed. 

" The idea," said the fiery chieftain, " of acquiescing in the 
refusal to execute the treaty will not, I am confident, be for a 
moment entertained by any branch of this government ; and 
further negotiation is equally out of the question." 

And further on : " It is my conviction that the United States 
ought to insist on a prompt execution of the treaty, and, in 
case it be refused or longer delayed, take redress into their 
own hands I recommend that a law be passed author- 
izing reprisals upon French property in case provision shall 
not be made for the payment of the debt at the approaching 
session of the French Chambers." 

There can be no doubt whatever that General Jackson would 
have precipitated the country into a war with France, had not 



60 The Danish Inlands. 

the English Government, in the nick of time, ofifered its media- 
tion. Tliis was accepted, and the affair was speedily arranged, 
— the French Government paying the money, principal and 
interest. 

It seems to me that this is, in several essential points, a case 
parallel with that of the Danish treaty. The United States, 
like Denmark, had completely fulfilled their part of the com- 
pact, and were so committed that the delay on the part of 
France was both an injury and an insult to them. We all 
know that, if Denmark had treated us as we are treating Don- 
mark, we should regard her conduct, not, perhaps, with the 
boiling fury of General Jackson, but at least with all the indig- 
nation becoming a civilized people. If to-day a war should 
become imminent with a great naval power, does any one 
doubt that we should instantly consider the Islands ours, and 
send, in the same week, a fleet to St. Thomas and a small cart- 
load of gold to the Danish legation ? And if that naval power 
should offer Denmark twenty millions for her Islands, should 
we stand by quietly and witness the transfer ? 

THE VALUE OF THE ISLANDS. — DO WE WANT THEM 1 

The West Indies slant from the western extremity of Cuba 
toward the southwest, and extend in a waving line about 
twenty-five hundred miles. The whole number of islands is 
about one thousand, only forty-five of which, however, are of 
any considerable magnitude or value. They contain nearly 
one hundred thousand square miles, or, in other words, they 
comprise about twice as much land as Pennsylvania. A large 
portion of this territory is of the greatest fertility, and pro- 
duces naturally the fru'its, woods, and other commodities, such 
as coffee, spices, and sugar, for which mankind are willing to 
pay the highest price. The islands abound in tolerable har- 
bors, and boast a very few excellent ones. The climate of 
many of the islands is perfectly salubrious and singularly en- 
joyable, and they exhibit natural scenes in the highest degree 
striking and picturesque. 



The Danish Islands. 61 

All of these islands, except one, acknowledge the sovereignty 
of some foreign power ; and every great naval power of the 
world exercises dominion over some of them, excepting alone 
the United States, to which they belong more naturally than to 
any other. Spain holds the largest of them under her sway. 
Over a large number — over most of the best of them — the 
flag of Great Britain floats. France possesses several ; Hol- 
land, a few; Sweden has one; Venezuela, a small South 
American State, possesses one. But there is not an island in 
the West Indies where an American can live, except by suffer- 
ance, nor a harbor to which, in time of war, an American cap- 
tain can take in a prize, or coal his ship, or haul up for repairs. 
And yet, to a great extent, those islands depend upon us for 
food, and we supply them with a large part of their machinery, 
fabrics, furniture, and articles of ornament and luxury. Every 
American ship which trades with Soutli America, on either side 
of it, or with California, Oregon, and Alaska ; every whaling- 
ship that makes its way to and from the fishing-grounds of the 
Pacific, passes by or among these islands, and is liable to re- 
quire from them shelter and supplies. 

The loss which accrued to the United States from the fact 
that, while we possessed no harbor in the West Indies, our 
naval enemy possessed several, and one within half a day's sail 
of the Florida coast, is beyond computation. 

We all hope, of course, that there will never be another war 
between the United States and a great naval power, nor any 
other power. We are apt to think that defeated Toryism will 
give it up without another fight ; but as Toryism is an inde- 
structible ingredient of human nature, this hope is probably 
fallacious. It seems as if there were a necessity in the nature 
of things for every nation to have a great fight once in each 
generation. It seems* as thotigh war is a necessity which can 
only be outgrown, if at all, after many ages of progressive 
civilization. But whether we fight soon or late or never, the 
exigencies of peace make it highly desirable for the United 
States to possess a haven in the West Indies. The Darien 
Canal, which is likely to be our next great project, will throw 



G2 The Danish Islands. 

into the family of nations all the States of the Pacific shore, 
will bring Valparaiso within twelve days' sail of New York, 
and will open to our commerce ten thousand miles of inhabited 
coast. Perhaps no work ever undertaken by man has pi'o- 
duced so many, so important, and so permanent changes in the 
world's business, as the completion of a canal through the 
Isthmus of Darien promises to effect. There are able and 
patriotic men connected with this scheme, who live but to 
accomplish it, and we may rest assured that, from this time 
forward, it is destined to go on steadily towards realization. 
We must have a port in the West Indies, if only to aid in exe- 
cuting this undertaking ; and when it is done, the necessity 
will be too obvious for remark. 

The Danish Islands are situated about midway in the long 
waving line of the West Indies. They are three in number, 
and are named St. Thomas, St. John, and Santa Cruz. The 
largest and the most productive is the one last named, with 
which we have nothing at present to do. Santa Cruz, I may 
however mention in passing, is twenty miles long and five 
wide, measures one hundred and ten square miles, contains 
twenty-five thousand inhabitants, and produces about eleven 
thousand hogsheads of sugar per annum. St. Thomas is little 
moEC than a huge mass of rocks, twelve miles long and three 
broad, and contains thirteen thousand inhabitants, whose chief 
support is commerce. St. John is an island of about the same 
size, character, and population. Both St. Thomas and St. 
John have excellent defensible harbors, and are important to 
us solely on that account. 

Respecting the particular value of those harbors, and their 
adaptedness to the wants of the United States, it were pre- 
sumption in a landsman, and one of no commercial experi- 
ence, to hazard an opinion. In such a matter we must de- 
pend upon the judgment of professional persons, such as the 
admirals and captains of our navy, the masters of clipper 
ships, and the heads of mercantile houses engaged in the 
West India trade. So far as I can ascertain, the opinion of 
such persons is, that, next to Havana, the harbor of St. 



The Banish Islands. 63 

Thomas is the best in the West Indies, and in some respects 
better for our purposes even than Havana. Admiral Farragut 
lias the highest opinion of the value of this harbor to the 
United States, and entirely approves the project of its acqui- 
sition. Vice- Admiral David D. Porter has placed his opinion 
upon record : — 

" St. Thomas," he writes, " lies right in the track of all 
vessels from Europe, Brazil, East Indies, and the Pacific 
Ocean, bound to the West India Islands or to the United 
States. It is the point where all vessels touch for supplies, 
when needed, coming from any of the above stations. It is 
a central point from which any or all of the West India 
Islands can be assailed, while it is impervious to attack from 
landing parties, and can be fortified to any extent. The bay, 
at the head of which lies the town of St. Thomas, is almost 
circular, the entrance being by a neck, guarded by two heavy 
forts, which, although not capable at present of resisting tlie 
heavy ordnance now in use, can be so strengthened and pro- 
tected that no foreign power could ever hope to take it. 

" St, Thomas is a small Gibraltar of itself, and could only 
be attacked by a naval force. There would be no possibility 
of landing troops there, as the island is surrounded by reefs 
and breakers, and every point near which a vessel or boat 
could approach is a natural fortification, and only requires 
guns, with little labor expended on fortified works. 

" There is no harbor in the West Indies better fitted than 
St. Thomas for a naval station. Its harbor and that of St. 
John, and the harbors formed by Water Island, would contain 
all the vessels of the largest navy in the world, where they 
would be protected at all times from bad weather, and be 
secure against an enemy. 

" The people have always been our friends. During the 
Rebellion, when all the ports of the French and British West 
India Islands were closed against us, St. Thomas furnished 
our vessels with supplies of all kinds, gave us information, 
and turned the cold shoulder to the Rebel cruiser. They 
offered the latter no facilities for preying upon our commerce. 



64 The Danish Islands. 

" In fine, I think St. Thomas is the keystone to the arch of 
the West Indies ; it commands them all. It is of more im- 
portance to us than to any other nation." 

Admiral Porter has done his work so thoroughly in this 
communication (of which only a small portion is given here) 
that little more need be said respecting the naval value of the 
Islands. With regard to their commercial importance, I will 
quote the opinion of Mr. Lyman D. Spalding, of Portsmouth, 
New Hampshire. He writes from personal knowledge and 
observation. 

" The great value," says Mr. Spalding, " of St. Thomas is 
its harbor, which is the best in the West Indies except Ha- 
vana ; and for all sailing vessels it has the great advantage of 
being to windward ; for a vessel can sail from St. Thomas to 
the east end of Cuba in three days ; but an average passage 
from the east end of Cuba to St. Thomas is three weeks, as 
the wind blows continuously from St. Thomas to Cuba ; one 
way a fair wind, back a head wind. Tliis is of no moment 
with steamers ; but bulky freight, from cheapness of transport, 
will generally go in sailing vessels. St. Thomas is a great dis- 
tributing centre, and is the natural point of exchange for 
merchandise for the northern part of South America, from 
Trinidad to Maracaybo, the smaller windward islands, Porto 
Rico, and, partly so, of the east end of St. Domingo. A 
vessel at St. Thomas can obtain business, be at her port of 
discharge or loading in a few days ; can buy or sell cargoes 
for discharge or loading at the other islands, and can obtain 
at St. Thomas assorted cargoes in exchange for cargoes or 
money carried there. It is also a money centre, and in the 
other islands exchange on St. Thomas is frequently quoted. 
It is tlie great repair-shop of tlie West Indies for vessels in 
distress, injured on our winter coast or on the North Atlantic, 
and it is very much the most valuable possession, for its size, 
of any of the West India Islands. Its harbor, capable of 
holding five hundred vessels, opens south, and, with the regu- 
lar trade-winds at east, a vessel can sail in and out with a side 
wind, without tacking." 



The Danish Islands. 65 

With regard to St. Thomas as a naval port, Mr. Spalding 
expresses the opinion that it is preferable to either Samana 
Bay or Cape St. Nicholas Mole. 

^^ It is reacly for use,''^ adds Mr. Spalding ; "tY is a port arid 
city BUILT, and no very large amount of money will he required to 
fit it for naval purposes. But to fit Samana Bay or St. Nicholas 
Mole for such a use would require about as much money as the 
first cost of St. Thomas. It is very easy of access and depart- 
ure, — one mile, and you arc at sea ! Whereas, Samana 
Bay is very long and difficult to enter or depart from by sail- 
ing vessels, and St. Nicholas Mole is also a deep inlet, with 
great depth of water, and its only good anchorage is at the 
head of the bay." 

To this I could add, if necessary, other testimony of similar 
character. 

I have had the pleasure of conversing with a distinguished 
officer of the Danish Navy, who now possesses a sugar-estate 
upon one of tliese islands. He is probably better acquainted 
with the group than any other living man, having served upon 
this station through all the grades of naval rank, from mid- 
shipman to admiral, from boyhood to gray hairs. For some 
years past he has resided in the group during most of the 
year, having now retired from active service. The climate, he 
assures me, except near the towns and coal-sheds, is as salu- 
brious as it is delightful ; for there is always a sea-breeze tem- 
pering the tropical heats, and there are no diseases which the 
care of man cannot as well avoid and cure as in regions 
supposed to be more favorable to health and longevity. With 
regard to the harbor of St. Thomas, he confirms the opinion of 
our own eminent admirals, that in time of war there is no 
port in the West Indies equal to it. The power holding it, he 
says, can strike out in every direction, and the harbor can be 
made as impregnable as Gibraltar. 

" In fact," added he, " if the United States had all the rest 
of the West Indies, you would still need St. Thomas, and you 
would need it then more than ever." 

I learn from this officer that the universal language of the 
5 



66 The Danish Islands. 

group is the English, and that there is nothing in the habits or 
feehngs of the people which is likely to prevent an easy and 
rapid assimilation with those of the United States. They have 
the free-school system as fully developed as we have, and the 
religion of the islands is Lutheran, rather than Calvinistic. 
The resident clergy have been materially assisted of late years 
by Moravian missionaries, and their united labors, with the in- 
fluence of the schools, have done as much as could be expected 
towards raising the character of the colored population. 

It would be easy to present to the reader a lively picture of 
the commercial activity of the port of St. Thomas. More than 
two thousand vessels enter that port sometimes in a single 
year, the number for 1867 being 1926. Of these, 108 were 
German, 427 were Danish, 628 were English, 115 were Dutch, 
280 were Spanish, 92 were American, 6 were Italian, 14 were 
Swedish, 7 were Russian, 1 was Belgian, 38 were Venezuelian, 
35 were Norwegian, 1 was Portuguese, 4 were Haytien, and 12 
carried the flag of St. Domingo. The returns for last year 
present about the same variety and proportion. St. Thomas, 
in fact, being a free port, and the other good harbors of the 
"West Indies being subjected to tariff systems more or less 
stringent, it has come to be, as before remarked, the great 
bazaar, or Stewart's store, wholesale and retail, for all that 
part of the world, at which firms in Birmingham, Manchester, 
Sheffield, Paris, Berlin, Philadelphia, Boston, and all other 
manufacturing centres, keep assortments of the goods which 
they produce. 

CONCLUSION. 

Here then I rest the ease. The whole matter is before the 
reader. If he has attentively perused the foregoing pages, he 
knows as much of this subject as Mr. Seward or General Raas- 
loff, and perhaps more than either of them ; for, in the pro- 
duction of this pamphlet, I have been able to draw freely from 
the pigeon-holes of both, and from the excellent memory of one 
of them. It has been shown, I think, — 

1. That we cannot repudiate Mr. Seward's bargain without 



The Danish Islands. 67 

inflicting a very great ahd irreparable injury upon a respect- 
able nation, our good friend and ally. 

2. That, if, after paying for Alaska, we refuse to pay for 
these Islands, we stand dishonored before mankind, as having 
one rule for the strong and another for the weak. 

3. That, however erroneous may be the system which per- 
mits the Executive to commit the country to purchases of 
land, we have no right to hold Denmark responsible for that 
system, nor to reform it at her expense. 

4. That, when a foreign government has so much as delayed 
the ratification and execution of a properly concluded treaty 
with the United States, we have felt ourselves to be grossly 
wronged, and were willing to seek redress by violence. 

5. That these Islands, in the opinion of professional men, 
have a great and peculiar value, which renders their acquisition 
highly desirable. 

No one could have been more prejudiced against this treaty 
than I was. Besides having a general aversion to the acquisi- 
tion of new territory, unless it lies right in the way of our 
inevitable march, I deemed the present a singularly unsuita- 
ble time for effecting such a purchase, or indeed any purchase 
that could be safely postponed. The National Debt is my 
religion. Having no debts of my own, it sometimes seems to 
me as if I owed all those billions myself, and must not spend 
an unnecessary dollar until we had, at least, got the debt 
properly funded, manageable, and in a way of being steadily 
reduced. We are delivered from our colossal evil, but the hill 
has not been settled ; and, although I have never for an instant 
doubted that our great debt of honor will be paid, and })aid to 
the satisfaction of those to whom we owe it, yet I shrink with 
morbid dread from any project that would add to the heavy 
load which tlie nation has to carry. It was with great pleasure 
that I sat last February in the gallery of the House of Repre- 
sentatives, and witnessed the amending of the appropriation 
bills, as they worked their painful way in Committee of the 
Whole. There was an absolute rage among meml^crs for 
cutting down appropriations, — which was, upon the whole, 



68 The Danish Islands. 

pleasing to observe, although occasionally, as it seemed, the 
House went too fast and too far. I listened with great satis- 
faction to the champions of retrenchment, Mr. Blaine, Mr. 
Wasliburne, General Butler, Mr, Scofield, General Farns- 
worth, and many others, and cast a silent, uncounted vote for 
them on almost every item. 

It so happened, too, that I fell in about that time with sundry 
gentlemen from the West Indies, who were in Washhigton to 
ask Congress to be pleased to accept a large slice of a large 
Island for nothing ; and when it seemed probable, in the gen- 
eral horror of undertaking new land, that these gentlemen 
might have to go home without being so much as fairly heard, 
I wrote a few paragraphs for the press, setting forth how mucli 
better it would be to get a large island for nothing than to buy 
two small ones for seven millions and a half in gold, with the 
privilege of taking a third island for three millions seven hun- 
dred and fifty thousand more in the same metal. 

These things are proper to be mentioned here, because they 
show that, when the documents relating to the Danish treaty 
were first placed in my hands, I felt with regard to it just as 
seven in every ten of those who will take up this pamplilet 
feel. Nevertheless, being moved thereto by gentlemen deeply 
interested in the subject, in and out of Congress, Americans and 
Danes, I examined those papers, and discovered that I had 
been opposed to the ratification of the treaty without knowing 
anything about it. It seemed to me, also, that there was in 
these documents the material for an interesting story, which, 
being simply told, would certainly throw light upon the art and 
mystery of diplomacy, and perhaps assist to prevent our doing 
a cruel wrong to a friendly power, respectable in every thing 
but size. 

Alaska, I repeat, has been paid for. It remains to be seen 
whether we really have one rule in dealing with a strong 
nation, and another in dealing with a weak one. We are to 
show, perhaps, by our conduct in this case, whether we are, or 
are not, the kind of people who can truckle to a giant and 
trample on a child. 



APPENDIX. 



APPENDIX. 



I AM enabled to lay before the reader a valuable communica- 
tion made recently to the Honorable Chairman of the Senate 
Committee on Foreign Relations, by Captain G. V. Fox, who 
served his country with so much ability and distinction during 
the war as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. 

CAPTAIN FOX TO THE HONORABLE CHARLES SUMNER. 

Boston, Mass., February 27, 1869. 
Hon. Charles Sumner, United States Senator, Chairman Senate 
Committee of Foreign Relations, WaKliington, D. C. 

Sir : — I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your 
letter of the 19th instant, requesting my opinion of the value 
of the island of St. Thomas. 

Having spent several years amongst the West India Islands, on 
board naval and commercial vessels, I am somewhat familiar 
with those localities. St. Thomas is a small island situated six- 
teen hundred miles south southeast of New York. It contains 
about two thirds of the area of the present District of Columbia, 
and resembles it in being broken up into heights susceptible of 
easy defence. The harbor is one of the best in the West In- 
dies, admirable for naval purposes, and fully equal to all the 
requirements of the commerce of those seas. 

Besides possessing a sufficient depth of water, and an extensive 
area, for the accommodation of fleets, transports, and convoys, 
it has natural advantages for defence, seldom found in connec- 
tion with the harbors of the West Indies. 

The entrance is narrow, and capable of being obstructed ; the 



72 Appendix. 

hills on both sides have a commanding elevation, sufficient to 
place the batteries thereon above the reach of ships' guns, whilst 
an attacking fleet would be subjected to their plunging fire. The 
harbor on the land side is covered by similar eminences. These 
are conditions which, together with its small area and insular 
position, give satisfactory security for a naval depot. 

The eminent geographical, strategic, and commercial position 
which St. Thomas occupies arrests the attention of the most 
casual observer of the world's chart. It is the apex of the West 
Indies ; opposite is the continent of Africa, equidistant are ' 
the eastern shores of North and South America ; on one side is 
Western Europe, and on the other the route to India and the 
Pacific ; in the rear* are the Spanish Main, Central America, 
the West Indies, Mexico, and those two great internal bodies of 
salt water belonging to this continent, the Caribbean Sea a^id 
the Gulf of Mexico. 

It is on the route of our trade with the West Indies, Brazil, 
the coasts of Africa, and the countries lying beyond the Cape 
of Good Hope and Cape Horn. Vessels from England and 
Western Europe stop there on their way to the tropical coun- 
tries of this hemisphere, the west coasts of America, and Aus- 
tralia. It has gradually come to be the commercial centre of 
the West Indies, and the distributing depot as well as the coal- 
ing and repair station of a tonnage greater than that of Boston 
and Baltimore combined ; thus demonstrating that its advan- 
tages have commanded the approval of practical merchants. 
When the Istlimus of Darien shall be cut through by a ship 
canal, its importance will be enhanced. That event depends on 
like economic calculations with the Suez Canal, now being 
opened. Trade which has been forced to use the routes around 
Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope will seek these artifi- 
cial channels, and the base of naval operations must be in their 
vicinity. The lines of communication between this country 
and all others cross the ocean. The central position of the 
United States, its vast shore line, prodigious resources, and the 
instincts of its people, point to a maritime supremacy. The 
distribution and exchange of the multiplying products of the 



Appendix. 73 

earth are becoming every day more dependent upon coal, 
inexhaustible quantities of which abound in the United States. 
Before the application of steam to naval purposes, sea-going 
vessels were built of wood wlierc ship-timber and cheap labor 
were abundant. Relying upon the winds alone for propulsion, 
they performed the longest voyages without entering port. 
Now, naval vessels and the principal commercial ships are 
steamers, constructed with skilled labor found near manufac- 
turing centres. A large portion of their internal space is oc- 
cupied with machinery and coal, leaving a limited part for 
cargo, supplies, and munitions. 

Every few thousand miles they must enter port for coal 
and repairs ; hence their movements are limited to passages 
from one coaling-port to another. Tliese altered conditions 
impose upon commercial countries the establishment of coal- 
ing and repair stations along ocean lines, just as they are found 
necessary upon our great railroad routes. 

The blockade of the Southern coast, equal in extent to the 
Atlantic border of Europe, was maintained, owing to the intro- 
duction of steam for naval uses, and the immediate capture 
from the Rebels of carefully selected stations for coaling and 
repairing our fleets. A blockading force of steamers cannot 
be driven from its station by bad weather, as was the case 
formerly with sailing squadrons. 

Nearly one half of all the steamers engaged in this severe 
duty were constantly under repair, and the adjacent ports, 
which foresight had provided, furnished, therefore, the base 
essential for naval success. 

If we had been defeated in our attempts to secure these 
places, the blockade could not have been sustained, and the 
casualties of battle would have been irreparable. 

England menaces our coast with four strategic points, — 
Halifax, Bermuda, Nassau, and Jamaica. At these stations 
were concentrated the munitions and supplies which encour- 
aged the Rebels, and afforded to them material aid. Owing 
to their proximity, British merchants were enabled to use for 
blockade purposes small light-draft steamers, well adapted for 



74 Appendix. 

entering the numerous shallow harbors of the South at night. 
If these positions had belonged to the United States, or if 
there had been no English stations so close to us, larger 
steamers would have been necessary to attempt the blockade ; 
such vessels must have had a greater draft of water, thereby 
restricting their entrance to daylight and fewer ports. 

That I do not exaggerate the importance of the naval stations 
of Great Britain on the coast of the United States is evident in 
remembering that, of fifteen hundred vessels and 8 32,000,000 
of property condemned prize to the Navy, nearly all belonged 
to British mercliants, and was captured passing between the 
English ports I have mentioned and our Southern harbors. 
Excepting a naval force upon our rivers, and co-operating 
movements with the army, the Navy of the United States, 
during the. Rebellion, was shedding its blood and expending 
the treasure of the country in efforts defensive against Great 
Britain. That power possesses at convenient intervals, along 
the routes of our trade, all around the earth, ports for coaling 
and repairing vessels. 

No other country, excepting the United States, has coal for 
exportation ; and since we own no stations abroad, and were 
not permitted, during the late war, to land coal on foreign 
territory for the use of our navy, we became entirely depend- 
ent upon England for means to reach the seas wliere American 
commerce was being pillaged. The naval experience of the 
Rebellion teaches that in future ivars steam pozver only can he 
used successfully against an enemy''s commerce. Therefore the 
nation having naval depots and surplus coal will occupy a 
commanding position in a maritime struggle. 

Steamers for the destruction of merchant vessels may, pos- 
sibly, be " improvised," but coaling-stations are only acquired 
by purchase or bloodshed. 

At the commencement of our struggle, the South had 
neither ports, cruisers, coal, munitions, nor sailors. All her 
resources for successful plunder of our commerce flowed from 
illegal expeditions, wliich left the shores of England by con- 
nivance of her Government, and subsequently found coal and 



Appendix. 75 

refitment at her depot stations. Experience shows that the 
successful pursuit of hostile steamers cannot he maintained with- 
out having coaling-stations where neutral restrictions do not exist. 

The persistent unfriendlhiess of the British Government 
made a painful impression upon Mr. Liucohi, and led him to 
reflect on the best means of lifting his country from humiliat- 
ing dependence upon foreign governments for naval repairs 
and supplies of coal during war. Hence his authority 
for commencing negotiations looking to the purchase of St. 
Thomas. 

His attention was early attracted to this island by its supe- 
rior position, the fitness of its harbor, the appliances already 
there for naval and commercial uses, and its pre-eminence over 
all other ports mentioned in capabilities of defence and free- 
dom from the expense and entanglements of large territorial 
acquisitions. The value was measured approximately by re- 
membering the cost of our eiforts in obtaining coaling-stations 
on the Southern coast, and reflecting upon the immense value 
of the menacing points belonging to Great Britain, near us. 

The experience of centuries has demonstrated that defensi- 
ble depot-stations in waters where a fleet is intended to act 
are invaluable for the protection they afford to commerce, the 
efficiency they give to naval power, and the economy they pro- 
duce in repairing and supplying such force. History is full of 
the struggles of nations for the control of such positions ; 
Rhodes, Malta, Minorca, Gibraltar, Louisburg, Havana, and 
Carthagena readily occur to the memory. Their loss was fol- 
lowed by diminished naval power ; their gain, by enlarged 
influence. 

Now, when coal has superseded sails for war purposes, and 
is increasing rapidly for commercial uses, the old reasons for 
their establishment have become imperative. The winds are 
everywhere, but steamers depend upon coaling-ports for their 
continuous efficiency. My judgment earnestly approved of 
this effort to acquire St. Thomas for a naval station. 

The reasons which made it wise and patriotic for Mr. Lin- 
coln to open negotiations to this end have lost none of their 



76 Appendix. 

force now. New grounds for favoring the object come con- 
stantly into notice, and our country can hardly fulfil the great 
destinies expected of her, unless she secures, when the opportu- 
nity is presented, a position which by strategic art will serve 
as an outwork to the coast of our Union, and give additional 
efficiency to the means of defending our commerce and our 
Atlantic and Pacific communications. 
With great respect, 

Your obedient servant, 
(Signed,) G. V. FOX. 



lRu/.i'2? 



